


The Serenade of Sir Mordred

by FindingTarshish, Kotobird



Series: Serenade Resurrection AU [2]
Category: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Genre: Action, Angst, Discussions of Past Trauma, F/F, Flashback, Fluff, Gratuitous puns, Mermaid Gears, Mild Lewd Content, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25151932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FindingTarshish/pseuds/FindingTarshish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kotobird/pseuds/Kotobird
Summary: Kanade and Serena are called overseas for a mission to recover the complete relic Excalibur, but the result leaves Serena devastated. All the while, Maria struggles to come to terms with Serena’s relationship with Kanade.This story takes place in the same universe as Moonlight Serenade, a few days later.
Relationships: Amou Kanade/Serena Cadenzavna Eve, Maria Cadenzavna Eve/Kazanari Tsubasa
Series: Serenade Resurrection AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822039
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. The Word ‘Implication’ and Its Various Definitions

Serena browsed the news on her phone as her disheveled partner poked at her oatmeal. They were together in Serena’s modest apartment, eating breakfast together after a night spent together. She looked up with a sudden swell of affection. Across the table, Kanade’s wild hair was somehow even more messed up than usual, leaving her looking like a lion that had rolled in red dye.

“You know, Kanade…” she began. “Remember the ‘cafeteria incident’ a few days ago?”

Kanade looked up with a salacious smirk that made it entirely clear which part of that particular night she remembered. “Yeah, I think I do. What about it?”

“Well, we never had that talk that you so obviously needed. You know, the one where I explain to you what the word ‘implication’ means?”

Kanade blinked a few times. She had completely forgotten about that part, and it showed on her face. ”Err… do we really need to talk about it?” She looked at Serena with sad puppy eyes in an attempt to dismiss the conversation.

Serena smirked. Usually she melted in the face of Kanade’s puppy eyes, but today she felt a strong resistance to their hypnotic effect. “Oh, you’re not getting out of it that easily. Are you forgetting how you very nearly gave my sister a heart attack that night?”

“Heh.” Kanade crossed her arms over her chest and reflected Serena’s smirk. “Should’ve waited till we got home then.”

Just like that, all of Serena’s confidence was gone. “N-not that, idiot! In the cafeteria!” She reached over to flick Kanade’s forehead, but she was just out of reach, leaving her to flail helplessly across the table.

Kanade sighed with a shrug. “Stop trying to flick my forehead like that, I told you I’m not Tsubasa.” She closed her eyes with a proud expression. “Besides, teasing you is just too fun.”

Serena’s grin returned “And teasing you is even more fun,” she quipped. “Though when you make a fool of yourself by flashing your horny card in public, you do my job for me. Which means I just get to sit back and enjoy the show.”

Kanade’s eyes snapped open, and she stood, slamming her hands on the table. The spoon in her empty bowl rattled. “HOW DARE YOU PULL MY HORNY CARD?!” She snarled. Unfortunately, standing up put her within range of Serena’s arms, and she received a flick to her forehead for her trouble.

She grumbled and rubbed her forehead. “...Meanie.”

Serena cackled. “I can pull your horny card any time I want, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll decide to keep it! What will you have to do to get it back, I wonder?”

Kanade cut through Serena’s words. “Do I need to do _it_ again? Jeez. Can’t believe you, Serena. Can we stay out of the closet this time?”

Internally, Serena pouted that her teasing hadn’t landed. “I’ll _lock_ you in the closet if you pull that again.” She still smiled, but it was a more serious smile this time. “Seriously though, Kanade. All I want to say is please consider everyone else around us when you start teasing.”

Kanade’s eyes softened. “Awww… I can’t do that. What would the point be?” Her smirk returned soon afterwards.

Serena rolled her eyes and downed the last of her toast.

With a sound somewhere between a sigh and a giggle, Kanade slunk around the table and slid into the chair next to Serena. “Aww, c’mon.” She nudged her arm with her shoulder. “I know you like it too.”

Serena put her arm around her girlfriend and nuzzled her neck. “You know I can’t stay annoyed at you. But you make me worry. My sister looked ready to go all TORNADO†DRAGON on you that night, and I’d like to keep you alive if I can.”

“Hah. I won’t go down that easily,” Kanade boasted.

A smug look crossed Serena’s face as her innocent switch flipped off. “You go down rather easily, if last night was any indication.”

Kanade inhaled, then swiftly squashed Serena’s cheeks in her hands to bring her face closer. “I am _this_ close to proving you wrong right here and now.”

Serena wriggled out of Kanade’s grasp, her face contorted in confusion. “Wait… what? Wouldn’t that mean…?”

Kanade turned bright red and clapped a hand over Serena’s mouth. “NO, DON’T FINISH THAT SENTENCE!”

Once again, Serena excised herself carefully, then pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “I cannot even begin to describe how confused I am right now.”

Kanade took a deep breath, her face turning an even brighter red. “Ugh.” She let go of Serena’s face and slid her chair away from her. “...I misunderstood what you said.”

“What did you _think_ I meant?!” Serena asked with a quizzical smile.

“...That I’m a bottom,” Kanade said miserably, looking like saying the words out loud was the most awful experience of her entire life.

Serena looked at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. She fell over onto her partner, resting her shaking head on Kanade’s chest. “So for all the dirty jokes you make at me, the one time I try my hand at lewd humor you don’t get it?”

Kanade huffed and looked away. “Well, you’re totally bad at it, then.”

Serena straightened out and smirked. _Why are none of my more advanced tactics working today?_ She thought. _Well then, ordinary, merciless teasing it is, then._ “Well, if it got you to admit that you’re such a cute bottom, then I guess it worked better than expected.” She booped Kanade’s nose with a single finger.

Kanade groaned. “That’s it, c’mere.” She once again squashed Serena’s cheeks between her hands and brought her closer for a small peck on her lips. “I hate when you win like this.”

The brown-haired girl struggled to keep her grin coherent under the onslaught. “So all the time?”

“Screw you. I could win if I wanted too, you’re just too cute when you do win.”

Serena’s face betrayed her mood: she was in total smug mode. She snuggled up against Kanade, then reached up to cradle her face for a kiss, but before their lips could touch, a heavy rap on the door made them both start. Serena rolled her eyes, stood, and went to the door, Kanade in tow. Through the peephole, she could see Maria standing there with an expression between worry and a scowl.

“It's your sister, isn’t it? Nobody knocks as _aggressively_ as her.” She dodged into the kitchen and peeked around the door frame. “If I open the door she might kill me, so maybe you should do it.” Kanade said, fixing a wrinkle in her shirt in case Maria decided to have another heart attack from misunderstanding even the smallest thing.

Serena nodded, and opened the door. Maria stood there in uniform, looking somewhat relieved to see her. “Good morning, Maria nee-san,” Serena said brightly.

“Good morning, Serena.” She spotted Kanade, and her voice became significantly more frigid. “I see Amou-san is with you.”

Serena frowned, visibly uncomfortable. It bothered her that her sister and lover couldn’t get along. She internally shook herself, and pushed past it. “Why are you in uniform, Sis? Is something wrong?”

Maria’s scowl softened to a more professional expression. “We’re needed at HQ for a mission briefing. They tried to call you two, but there was no answer, so the Commander asked me to go find you. He sent Tsubasa to find Amou-san, but it appears that she’ll find an empty apartment.”

Serena’s smile morphed from uncomfortable to confused. She pulled out her S.O.N.G. communicator from her pocket. Judging by the blinking red indicator, the battery was dead. “I forgot to charge it last night, sorry.”

Maria’s expression darkened as she glared at Kanade. “Perhaps you were too _busy_ ,” she hissed.

There were a few moments of silence, before Kanade nested her fist into her other hand in realization. “OH! So that’s what it was. Forgot that I put it away ‘cause it was in the way last night. Oops. My bad.”

Maria’s expression looked as though she was considering returning to the life of a terrorist queen in order to strangle Kanade, but she seemed to manage to hold it back. When she finally spoke, her voice was icy. “Both of you need to be at HQ within the hour.” She turned on her heel and stalked down the hall.

Kanade quietly watched as Maria left, and then turned to Serena with a confused but playful expression. “So, um… what’s an ‘implication’ again?”

Serena wrapped Kanade in a hug and buried her head in her neck. “I appreciate the joke, but right now, my sister looks positively murderous. I don’t have any laughter left.” She put her hands on her lover’s shoulders and held her at arm's length to look her in the eye. “Why’d you say that, huh? Why do you make me worry like this?”

Kanade didn’t have an answer for that.

Serena released her and patted her fluffy hair. “C’mon, let’s go get ready. After last time— you know, the time when you showed up to fight Noise, drunk, in your lingerie, because you couldn’t find your clothes— you left one of your spare uniforms at my apartment just in case.”

“Did I? I’m pretty sure I just forgot it here.” Kanade grimaced, scratching the back of her neck in embarrassment as she remembered that day. She didn’t even have a comeback for that. Explaining that one to the Commander had been... interesting, to say the least. She shrugged it off. “Let’s go then.”


	2. The Ivory Tower on the Isle of Avalon

Kanade and Serena jogged down the hallways of headquarters, the soles of their boots emitting a satisfying clunk as rubber impacted metal. With a hiss, the door to the bridge slid open to reveal a room containing seven impatient wielders, two stressed S.O.N.G. bridge officers, one ninja idol manager, one buff guy with a goatee, and one tiny science elf.

They burst into the room, both gasping for breath. “Sorry,” Serena wheezed. “My comm was out of batteries.”

Chris crossed her arms. “Hmph. What’s the rooster’s excuse?”

Kanade’s already present smirk only widened. “It was in my way last night.”

The silverette blushed an aggressive red of such intensity that it made her armor look washed out. “D-do that stuff at home!”

“We were  _ at  _ home!” Serena retorted.

Kanade leaned down next to Serena’s ear. “Lies.” She whispered, barely able to keep herself from bursting into laughter. Serena elbowed her in the gut, causing the Gungnir girl to double over.

Genjuro cleared his throat. “If you kids are done, let’s try and get this briefing started.”

Everybody froze and nodded. If anything could bring them together in the middle of conflict, it was their shared respect for the man who had basically become their adoptive father. Without a word, they abandoned their argument, straightened up, and got in line.

The main viewer flicked from its screensaver of falling cubes to a series of informational panels and a 3d model depicting some kind of facility. “Last night, a splinter cell of the Bavarian Illuminati attacked the Avalon Research Station in England,” Genjuro said “We know disappointingly little besides that.”

“However, we haven’t detected any signatures from Faust Robes,” Elfnein chimed in. “So that’s good. However, we have confirmed the use of aquatic Alca-Noise.”

Maria frowned. “That’s strange. We’ve never encountered swimming Noise before.”

Elfnein nodded. “That’s because swimming requires constant interaction with the fluid throughout the entire body to remain buoyant, and that makes the phase contrast barrier that makes them indestructible completely useless. Ordinary Noise only need to have the bottoms of their feet remain corporeal — or just their wings and thrusters, in the case of Flight Noise — but aquatic Noise are dependent on buoyancy to move, so their entire bodies are constantly corporeal, just like a mundane monster.” She frowned. “And at that point, there’s not much point in using Noise over human soldiers. In addition, those Noise would have to be custom made, which means this was well funded and planned far in advance. Whoever led this attack was ready for this.”

Miku crossed her arms. “Whatever they were after there must be important to them.”

“Do we have any idea what that is?” Chris followed up. “What are they looking for? What is this place, anyway? It’s a research station, but what were they researching?”

Tomosato answered. “It’s a heretical technology research facility built by the United Kingdom after the disclosure of the Sakurai Theory. They wanted to build mass produced symphogears from fragments of the relic Caliburn, but without Finé to build them…”

“It didn’t work,” Chris finished.

“The project was scrapped just after the Frontier Incident. After S.O.N.G. was founded, Avalon was transferred to us. It was planned to be a western equivalent to the Undersea Dragon’s Palace—” Chris winced at the name “—but it only ever housed six relics, even at its height,” Fujitaka continued.

Elfnein tapped on her console a few times. “Considering the timing of the attack, the going theory is that  _ this  _ is what they were after.” The viewer switched to an image of a regal-looking woman with black hair, clad in white samite silk robes, clutching an ornate silver longsword tightly. She looked peaceful in her sleep. Both woman and sword were encased in transparent crystal, just like Tiki was when they first encountered her.

Kanade’s face bore a lustful grin that ignited a spark of jealousy in Serena. “Hey, that’s kinda hot.” Her selective hearing suddenly awakened her from the sea of words Elfnein was pouring at them.

“Actually, she was found in the nearby marshes of Glastonbury. The water temperature there was about 15.5° Celsius, and according to thermal data, her internal body temperature is even lower, so she’s quite cold,” Elfnein said, ever innocently oblivious. “If she hadn’t already been classified as a relic, I’d be surprised she’s alive.”

“Um…” Kanade hissed quietly, but shut her mouth before her gut suffered any more of Serena’s elbow. She felt it coming... “Yeah. You’re right.” She did her best to smile through her obvious fear of her partner.

After shooting an annoyed glare at Kanade, Maria turned back to Elfnein. “What is that?” she asked.

Elfnein tapped her console again, and the sword lit up with a blue outline. “We don’t know for sure, but given the location of its discovery and its shape, the Avalon staff believed this to be Excalibur.”

Chris frowned. “I know that name. My parents used to tell me that story when I was a kid.”

Suddenly, Kirika piped up. “Um,  _ I  _ don’t know what it is.” Everyone turned to stare at her, and she let out a startled ‘dess!’

“Excalibur was the sword of King Arthur Pendragon,” Elfnein explained. “According to the legend, Arthur retrieved it from the Lady of the Lake after the Black Knight Pellinore shattered his previous sword. Based on its prevalence in humanity’s collective mythos, it’s likely a relic or a philosophical weapon.”

Serena crossed her arms. “Are we sure it’s from that legend? There are plenty of myths with no associated relics. Also, from what I’ve read, strange women in ponds handing out swords and supreme executive power as the basis for a form of government is not exactly a rare thing in european myth.”

Elfnein grinned. She’d understood the reference; Carol had been quite fond of that sort of satirical humor. “Those are copycats of the original myth. Besides, Avalon also houses—” she winced “— _ housed _ two other relics contained from the same mythography. Caliburn and Clarent were both swords from Arthurian myth. Caliburn in particular is somewhat of a tell: it’s also known as the Sword in the Stone, and holds the distinction of being one of the most famous swords in European legend.” Even those wielders who were unfamiliar with the legend recognized  _ that  _ name.

“Regardless, the United Kingdom has asked the S.O.N.G. send wielders to suppress the alchemists,” Genjuro said. “UN forces currently have them pinned down, but ordinary amphibious units haven’t been able to get close without sustaining heavy losses.”

Tsubasa stepped forward. “If our intel is correct, Maria and I should take on this mission. It’s too dangerous to send any of the rest of you to the other side of the world to fight an opponent we know almost nothing about.”

“You two need to prep for your concert on Friday. You don’t have time for a mission,” Serena pointed out.

“And besides, what exactly makes you better at this mission than me, hm?” Kanade stepped into Tsubasa’s personal space, her smirk only widening.

“I—” Tsubasa opened her mouth to answer, but Kanade flicked her forehead gently and turned back to the others. 

“Nope, don’t answer. I’ll go instead.”

Serena stepped forward. “An assault mission like this isn’t something that should be done alone. And the rest of you, Chris-san excepted, have got summer homework to do,” she said. “I’ll go with her.”

Chris’s expression hardened. “In that case, I’ll go too.”

Serena shook her head. “If you do that, Kirika’s never going to get her summer work done.”

Hibiki raised her hand tentatively. “U-um, what if I just do the homework later? It won’t take that long, right?” She eyed Kanade, who shrugged at her. 

“I’m not in charge, apparently. Ask her,” Kanade said, pointing to Serena.

“H-HOLD ON, why do you all think I can’t do my homework alone?! Or that I can’t do it later like Hibiki-san?!” Kirika pouted, upset by the childish treatment towards her.

Serena sighed. “Do you remember what happened last year? Tachibana-san didn’t actually finish her summer homework because she got hung up in Val Verde.” Miku shot Hibiki a pointed glance at that. Serena bent over slightly and muffed Kirika’s hair a bit. “We’ll take care of this. Just do your homework now, and you won’t have to worry about it later!”

Elfnein tapped her console a few more times to input the mission information. “So Serena-san and Kanade-san will be going on this mission?”

Kanade totally wasn’t listening to anything at this point. “Heh… Serena’s acting like a mom,” she giggled, mostly to herself.

Serena ignored her and turned to Elfnein. “Yes. The two of us will go. And if anything goes wrong, we’ll have Tsubasa-san and Maria nee-san there as backup.”

Elfnein nodded. “Understood. Could the two of you meet me at the simulator in 20 minutes so we can go over underwater combat in gears?”

It took a second for that to register. “Wait,  _ underwater _ ?!” Serena exclaimed.

Elfnein grinned a little. At a few more taps on her console, a map of the Bristol Channel appeared on the viewer. A red dot in the middle of the bay was labelled ‘Avalon.’

Genjuro chuckled “The station is underwater to aid in security. You’ll have to dive about 55 meters to reach it.”

Kanade’s grin was approaching unsafe levels. “That’s deep, but I bet I can go deeper in—” Maria hissed loudly at that. “Crap!” Kanade hid herself behind Serena. “Please don’t kill me, I didn’t get to marry Serena yet!”

Maria didn’t respond, but her glare remained just as disapproving as before.

Genjuro, seemingly unconcerned with the drama unfolding before him, slammed his fist into the palm of his hand. “Well, when you’re done with Elfnein-kun’s training menu, I have a library of underwater action films we cou—”

Ogawa cut in. “Actually, there won’t be time for that. We need to have them in England as soon as possible, so they’d need to leave on the same flight as Tsubasa-san and Maria-san. That gives them just enough time to do Elfnein-san’s training and pack their things before we rush them to the airport.”

Genjuro was visibly disappointed as he slumped down into his chair. “I getcha, Old Man. I getcha,” Kanade said as she patted his back and sighed sadly.

Serena hooked her arm around her girlfriend’s and nearly pulled her off her feet as she dragged her toward the door. “We’d best get going, then.”


	3. A Shrimp for a Shrimp

Fifteen minutes later, the two of them found themselves outside the door to the simulator chamber. “Ready to go swimming?” Kanade asked jokingly.

“Hmmm,” Serena hummed. The door slid open as she walked through.

Before them spread an enormous pebble beach, with an impressive cliff face behind them. For dozens of kilometers across, choppy waves lay blanketed in mist.

“Whoa” Serena breathed. “Didn’t know the simulator could do  _ this _ .”

“Ah, you two are here,” Elfnein said brightly. She padded over to them, dressed in her swimsuit with her lab coat around her shoulders. Next to her on the beach stood a grey dropcloth that covered something about a meter high, and two and a half meters long. What it was, Serena had no guess.

“That’s a lot of  _ moisture _ .” Kanade rubbed her hands together, mostly because of the chilly weather, but also because of the  _ great opportunity for fish puns. _

Serena rolled her eyes, then looked back to Elfnein. “So, I guess we need to transform now, right?”

“Not quite. In the mission to Antarctica a few months ago, we learned that ordinary Gears are largely ineffective underwater, since it’s impossible to breathe, and by extension, sing; Hibiki-san almost died because Shem-Ha’s Coffin smashed through the ice,” Elfnein said. “We also know that your gears can modify your physiology, since when transformed you have enhanced strength and reaction speed, and the tensile strength of your skin is much higher. In addition, your senses are enhanced without any external peripherals.”

Serena furrowed her brow and frowned. “So… where is this going?”

“You need to adapt your internal mental image of what you are when transformed to have a number of adaptations: You need to be able to breathe and sing underwater, you’ll need low-light optical functionality, and you need some kind of means of underwater conveyance.”

Her frown deepening, Serena pulled her pendant over her head and shook her hair out. “Let me give it a try.” She sang her chant, and her armor swirled around her with a sound like wind chimes, and adhered to her body. The same armor she always wore. “Hmmm,” she murmured. With a wave of her hand, her armor shattered into motes of light. “Maybe I need to be in the water to visualize it properly?” she mused, half to herself.

Elfnein ducked up the dropcloth. “It will likely take a few tries,” she shouted from under the fabric. “Keep trying, and let me know when it works!”

Kanade watched her partner nod at that and wade into the water. An ethereal voice drifted on the wind as the brunette sang: 

_ Seilen Coffin Airgetlám Tron _

In a flash of light brighter than the last, Serena vanished, and rather than the graceful fusion of human and relic that generally accompanied a transformation, Kanade could just make out Serena flailing her arms as she fell into the water with an inelegant splash.

Kanade froze, then worry surpassed her confusion. She rushed into the shallows. “Serena? Serena?! Where’d you go?!”

With a shower of water, Serena shot out of the water. As she somersaulted through the air, Kanade noticed one striking difference in her gear: the long, lean legs she loved so much were gone, replaced by a silvery tail twice the length of her body. Silver plates clad her hips, covering the transition point between ichthyes and mammalia. Besides a pauldron on each shoulder, her upper half was clear of metal. Only a simple tie-front top covered her chest. She propped herself up on a nearby boulder in the classic mermaid pose. “What are you waiting for?” she shouted. “Come on in, the water’s fine!”

Surprised by the sudden jump, Kanade stumbled back and fell into the water. “Shem-ha please take me, I'm ready to go.” Her voice cracked. “I’m gay for a fish girl.”

Serena flicked her tail back and forth, seemingly unfazed by the sudden loss of her legs. “So are you going to get in or do I have to drag you under?”

“Oh please do drag me, that sounds hot.” Kanade still struggled to let a single sentence out of her mouth beside jokes and gay panic.

Serena shrugged with a knowing smile. “Sure, up to you.” Almost faster than the eye could see, she drew a wicked, wide-bladed bowie knife from her gauntlet and slashed it toward Kanade.

The redhead’s eyes widened as the blade extended into Airgetlám’s chain sword, and wrapped around Kanade’s ankle. She yelped, and had just enough time to close her mouth before Serena dragged her into the water, just as she promised.

* * *

Elfnein ducked out from under the dropcloth and looked around the beach with a confused expression. “Where did everyone go?”

* * *

Beneath the water, Serena released Kanade’s ankle, grasped her collar, and zipped around in circles, dragging the wide-eyed Gungnir Girl behind her. Just as Kanade’s lungs began to burn, Serena surfaced, and Kanade inhaled as much oxygen as she could as soon as her head was above the water. “That sucked,” she gasped. “Thought the experience would be better than this. That’s sad…” Kanade whined, turning her head to Serena. “Meanie. Give me a second.” She took another deep breath and sang her chant.

_ Croitzal Ronzell Gungnir Zizzl _

She felt her legs dissolve in perhaps the most peculiar sensation of her entire life. Orange, black, and white metal faded into existence before slamming into her body with a blinding flash. The electric energy around her subsided, and her transformation completed with a rumbling shockwave, propelled out into the sea. Knowing it had worked, she looked down at herself excitedly, only for her excitement to drain from her face and to be replaced by a confused glare.

“Wait, why am I a clownfish?” she said with an annoyed lilt to her voice.

Whereas Serena’s tail had been long and silvery, and covered by platelike scales not unlike a dragon’s, Kanade’s tail was short, and her scales were small and pearly. Rather than Serena’s delicate, silky fins, Kanade’s were thicker and stockier, much better adapted to powerful strokes of her tail than gliding along on the currents. White stripes bordered by thin black outlines ringed her lower body, on a field of radiant orange scales. There was no mistaking it: she was a clownfish mermaid.

Serena giggled. “Because you’re a bit of a clown, Kanade.”

“Damn. Can’t believe my own girlfriend called me a clown.” Kanade scoffed, flipping her tail against the water angrily.

Serena was about to issue a retort, only to be interrupted by the put-put of a small engine as a tiny mini-sub puttered toward them. Inexplicably, it looked like a fried shrimp, with articulated fins on its tail and a pair of propeller turbines on either side. Painted on the side in bright yellow letters were the words ‘S.S. Shrimp Shrimp.’ Rather than a face, a glass dome stretched over the front, and within lay the happiest alchemical shrimp they’d ever seen.

“Woah. That’s a super cute shrimp ya got there.” Kanade grinned, gently bumping her fist on the porthole. “Nice job, Shrimp.”

Elfnein’s voice filtered in through their Gears’ headphones. “Thanks! I see the Gear visualization experiment worked well!”

“Yeah, it did.” Kanade sighed, shaking her head. “It really… really did.”

Serena considered flicking her forehead, but she realized in her Gear it might  _ actually  _ hurt her. She settled for a playful shove. “Oi, focus, you.”

“Alright, alright.” Kanade stretched her arms as if she had just woken up. “So, what are we doing? I totally wasn’t listening to anything you said back in HQ…”

Elfnein seemed somewhat disappointed at that, but she was still grinning ear to ear in irrepressible excitement, as one might expect from an alchemical shrimp inside a mechanical shrimp. “I’m going to put some Noise in the water. I need you to fight them so I can get combat data. It’ll also give you some practice fighting them.” She paused. “We don’t have a lot of data of their exact abilities, so we’ve upped all their stats to compensate. These will probably be stronger than the ones you’ll face at Avalon.”

Both of them nodded.

Elfnein tapped a console in her submarine. They all dived, and Serena noticed several things at once. First and foremost, she could breathe perfectly— she could barely sense a difference between water and air. In addition, even with their enhanced eyesight, seeing through the water would have been nearly impossible, yet Serena would have likened it to a foggy day; She couldn’t see all the way to the horizon, but she could still see a few hundred meters. And lastly, while she usually had trouble with high air pressure, she barely noticed the crushing weight of the water.

“I’m going to start sending in Noise, okay?” Elfnein said.

“Go ahead,” Serena responded. It seemed her vocal cords could function just as well in water as in air.

Out of nowhere, a huge, shimmering tentacle slammed into her, propelling her into the mud on the seafloor. She wheezed, the wind — water? — knocked out of her. Above her, a horrifying mass of tentacles, bony plates, and claw-like hands descended toward her.

An orange meteor rammed into the creature’s side, splintering its bony armor and punching through its body. With a hideous shriek, the Noise disintegrated. The orange light materialized into Kanade as she zipped down to help Serena up. The dazed mermaid took her partner’s outstretched hand gratefully.

“Missed me, didn’t you?” Kanade smiled in her most charming way. Serena found herself torn between blushing madly and focusing on the fight at hand.

Two more of the Kraken Noise approached from the side. Shaking the daze from her eyes, Serena took a moment to examine them more closely. The main body of each Noise was roughly circular, about two meters in diameter, with a solid bony plate on their underbelly and three more plates in the shape of an angular aitch over the top of the body. Along the flanks extended four tentacles on each side, each six meters long, and gleaming with white dissection organs along their length. From behind them writhed a mass of thin tendrils that seemed to provide propulsion. Two long, double-jointed arms with knobby elbows and wrinkled, leathery skin, ending in wicked, three clawed hands extended from just below the Noise’s faceplate. Occasionally, the creature glittered, but on the whole, it seemed like an ordinary, corporeal monster, with slimy skin that seemed to shimmer with thousands of tiny hairs.

They asked, and Elfnein chimed in. “They look like normal monsters because they can’t use the phase contrast barrier, so they’re always physical.” She paused. “It kind of makes them look a little scarier.”

Kanade cracked her knuckles. “Don’t worry, Shrimp, we’ll take care of ‘em.”

Another tentacle lashed out at Kanade, but she dashed past it and closed her hand around the base of the appendage. In a shower of alkahest that looked uncomfortably like blood, she ripped the tentacle out of the body.

The Noise shrieked and thrashed, throwing Kanade off. The redhead’s eyes widened as the Noise’s claws extended toward her face. Just before the razors sunk into her, a silver chain embedded itself in the Noise’s glittering faceplate, cracking it. With a screech, the weapon retracted, dragging Serena in to punch the wounded creature away. Taking advantage of the distraction, Kanade summoned her trident and drove the tines into the Noise’s throat. The water turned red with Noise viscera as the monster dissolved.

The other Kraken Noise roared and launched itself toward them. Serena flipped her dagger around and slammed it into the back of her gauntlet. With a high pitched whine, the gauntlet expanded into a railgun and fired a round through the Noise, turning it to dust.

Another wave of two Noise approached them, the dissection organs along the undersides of their tentacles waving. With a rare serious expression on her face, Kanade flicked her wrist, and a weighted net appeared in her hand. She cast it at the closest Kraken Noise and entangled its limbs, trapping them against its body. The creature’s faceplate flashed white in panic as the net wrapped its tentacles around itself, forcing it to dissect itself.

The other Noise, oblivious to the fate of its comrade, advanced on Serena. She flicked her dagger into a chain once again. With a lash of her arm, she embedded the end in a gap in the creature’s armor. It wailed and thrashed in an attempt to strike her and dislodge the weapon, but Serena was already on the move; she extended more of the blade as she darted around it, loosely wrapping it in razor-sharp chain. Its movement compromised, the creature slammed into the seafloor, kicking up a wave of muck. With a smirk, Serena wrapped the chain around her wrist and yanked, mincing the Noise as the sword tightened around its body.

For another hour, they continued to fight wave after wave of the creatures, developing new techniques for fighting them and testing their different tactics. Serena was just about to ask to take a break with a familiar voice crackled in their ears. “That’s enough data for today,” Elfnein said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stick around to watch in person, but I’m watching from the lab while I crunch the numbers. You two did really well!”

Kanade grinned. “Those were some tough Noise, Shrimp. You weren’t kidding when you said you said you upped their stats!”

“Sorry about that,” Elfnein said. “I figured it was better to overestimate than underestimate.”

Serena shrugged. “Makes sense. We should hit the showers, then get packing.”

“Good luck, you two!” Elfnein said. “Stay safe out there!” The line clicked dead.

Kanade looked Serena up and down, her usual thirsty grin back on her face. “Man, I can’t wait to see how you  _ fish  _ me into bed like this.”

Serena had a look of dread on her face. She knew all too well what was about to happen; there had been far too many missions where Kanade’s idea of heroic banter had been unrelenting puns.

“Ahh sorry, my joke was a pile of carp. Maybe I should scale back on ‘em.”

“Please no,” Serena pleaded.

“Oh! So I should continue?” She didn’t give Serena a chance to clarify her words before she continued. “You’re just  _ fintastic _ , Serena.”

Without a word, Serena turned and shot away, desperate to escape these torturous puns.

“Wait! I really believe that to the bottom of my sole, come on!” She followed her, trying to catch up to her speedy partner.

While Kanade was stronger than Serena, the brunette’s longer tail and wider fins made her significantly faster. She sped along the water and shot out of the water in a graceful arc, trailing illusory simulated water behind her… and sailed through the open door of the simulator chamber and out into the hallway. Her tail flopped on the metal ground with a wet slap. “Ow…” she groaned.

A net flew through the door after her, and wrapped around her body, binding her arms to her sides. “Hey now~ You can’t just run away from me like that!” She strained to look at the source of the voice, only to see Kanade lying at the threshold dragging herself toward her, having launched herself out the door the same way Serena had. The redheaded mermaid climbed on top of her bound prey and licked her lips. “What’re you gonna do now,  _ top _ ?”

Serena grinned and opened her mouth to issue a retort, only to go completely pale and stare over Kanade’s shoulder. “Uh… hi, Sis,” she said.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me—” Kanade turned around, visibly annoyed.

“Hello, Amou-san,” Maria said as she stood looming before them. If her voice had seemed cold before, now it was at absolute zero. “Having fun?”

“Wait, Sis, this isn’t what it looks like—!”

Maria continued glowering at Kanade as she answered. “And what  _ does _ it look like, Serena?”

Serena struggled against the net, her face completely red. Unsure what to say, she let out a high pitched whine in embarrassment.

Without a word, Maria turned and stalked away, leaving the two mermaids on the floor of the submarine, feeling as awkward as fish out of water.


	4. Tokyo to Bristol

Kanade and Serena walked through the terminal with their suitcases, sunglasses on and hair tied back to avoid being recognized. It wasn’t strictly necessary for Serena to hide her face, but as a former idol, Kanade had to disguise herself to avoid being swamped by fangirls, not a small number of which would be violently disappointed to find out she had a girlfriend.

Serena tapped her shoulder, and pointed to a nearby gate. A blue-haired girl in a flat cap and sunglasses and her equally disguised pinkette companion stood leaning against a wall in an abandoned gate. Outside, a sleek private jet with a blue, grey, and pink emblem taxied up to the skybridge.

Kanade walked up with palpable swagger. “Hey, cool jet,” she said in greeting. “So that’s your lovenest? Nice.”

Maria was not amused. “If your nest is flying, you built your nest wrong,” she deadpanned. “If we’re all here, let's get going.” She brushed past the blushing sword beside her and stomped down the jet bridge, her suitcase thudding down the ramp behind her.

Ogawa gave a strained smile, and led them into the plane. Entering the main cabin, Kanade immediately noticed it was divided into several compartments and a common area. Not a second passed before her grin once again widened even more. She quickly turned it into a much more subtly innocent smile as she peeled off from the main group settling in the common area. “Hey, I’m gonna be napping, so I’m going into a different cabin. Don’t wanna snore in your face, y’know?” She hooked Serena’s arm into hers. “I’ll be going then~”

“And why are you dragging Serena along with you if you’re just ‘napping?’” Maria said, her overprotective instinct on display in her brumal voice.

“Er…” Kanade’s innocent smile cracked slightly, but she remained strong. “Well, I mean… uh—” She took a moment to think. “It’s hard to nap alone! And it’s easier to sleep with Serena!” she said, entirely oblivious to the hidden innuendo in her words. “C’mon, I’m really tired.” Kanade frowned and suddenly scooped Serena up. “I’ll just _steal_ her away.” She smirked and rushed into the other cabin before Maria could stop her.

As the door to the compartment slid closed behind them, Serena rolled out of Kanade’s hands and lightly touched down on the floor in a perfect three-point landing. “You know I can walk for myself, right?”

“Yeah, but this was faster.” Kanade flopped down on the couch and relaxed across two of the three cushions. “Besides, it’s fun to mess with your sister like this. How do I even make her like me anyway?” She stretched out and yawned, clearly not expecting any answer for her partly rhetorical question.

Serena sat down next to her. “It’d go a long way if her only interactions with us weren’t her walking in on us kissing.”

“I think our kisses summon her. It’s almost as if that cat haircut hides _horns_ under it...” She chuckled, leaning closer to Serena. “C’mon, doesn’t it sound true?”

Serena stifled a grin. “Are you calling my sister horny? My, Kanade, have some decorum!” she jested.

“Hehe,” Kanade giggled. “But if kissing summons her...” She gently pushed Serena’s chin up and brought her closer. “...can I see if it works this time?”

“Hmm,” Serena hummed. She leaned in, then winced in pain and touched her ear. “Ow…”

Confused and disappointed, Kanade tilted her head and let go of Serena’s chin. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Serena blinked, then pinched her nose and blew some air into her sinuses to equalize the pressure in her ears. “Cabin pressure,” she groaned, her face contorted into a grimace.

“Ouch...” Kanade hissed. But an idea popped into her mind. “Hey, c’mere.” She pulled Serena closer, letting her head rest on her chest. “Just rest and calm down. Maybe it’ll help.”

Serena closed her eyes and snuggled closer.

Kanade sighed happily and patted her head. “Better?”

Serena purred her approval. “Better…”

They fell asleep like that, snuggled together in a comforting embrace.

* * *

The rumbling of the engines woke Kanade up. She groaned quietly, rubbing her eye with one hand. Her other arm seemed to be even more asleep than she was. She looked to her side, the sight in front of her eyes quickly bringing a smile to her face. “Hey sleepyhead, wake up.” She nudged Serena softly.

“Mmmpphhhh…” Serena straightened up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Hey…”

“How were my boobs as a pillow? Soft enough?” She chuckled, stretching her body as much as she could in the cramped compartment. Well, at least it was bigger than that closet.

Serena glomped onto her, with her eyes half lidded in a look that would be sultry were it not entirely apparent that she was still half asleep. “They were nice… but I could have done without the pillowcase.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kanade smirked. She grabbed the hem of her shirt, ready to throw it off. “How about you tell me the difference without the pillowcase?”

“Mmmmm,” She pushed Kanade down, climbed on top of her, and kissed her aggressively, their tongues crossing in an intimate fencing match. Kanade began to roll her shirt up, but just as the bunched fabric reached the swell of her chest, the compartment door slid open. “Mumph!” Serena’s eyes snapped open, and she and Kanade both looked at the door, a thin string of saliva still linking their open mouths.

Maria stood there with a stiff and frigid expression that was quickly becoming the norm.

“Okay what, with all due respect, the actual fuck,” Kanade said. She looked away and back at her lover. She had a sneaking suspicion that maintaining eye contact with Maria any longer would be a lethal experience.

Maria gave them both one last glare, her lip curling somewhat as she looked at Kanade. “The plane lands in 20 minutes.” She slammed the compartment door shut.

“Well, that was scary….she really is hiding horns under that hair,” Kanade groaned, pulling her shirt back down and crossing her arms. “She’ll never like me, will she?”

Serena hummed. “Mmm. Doesn’t matter, I still like you.” She snuggled up against Kanade’s chest and looked her in the eyes with the lewdest grin the redhead had ever seen on her. “Now, with as long as twenty minutes until landing, why does my pillow still have a case on it?”

Kanade answered the grin in kind and shucked her shirt off with practiced ease. “Oh, you’re _on_.”

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, Maria and Kanade had been relegated to holding down a table in the Bristol Airport food court while Tsubasa, Serena, and Ogawa retrieved something to eat after the long flight. How this division had been decided, Maria had no idea, since at this moment, there was no one she wanted to spend time with less than Amou Kanade.

Maria’s head was still a swirl of emotions. In general, they had been on good terms. Friends, even. But after discovering Serena and Kanade together that night, her relationship with the former idol had soured considerably, to the point where she’d even stopped calling her by her first name. Even when Kanade made good on her offer to give Maria tips on how to woo Tsubasa, Maria had silently accepted them with only the bare minimum of thanks, and since then, they had barely spoken beyond a few cold words. Maria knew it hurt her sister that she and Kanade didn’t get along, but she couldn’t help it: she simply couldn’t accept that her sister had taken a lover. She still thought of Serena as the brave little girl who sang her heart out to protect others. With the image of her sister coughing up blood in the face of the charred husk of the Nephilim seared into her memory, it was hard for Maria to see her as anyone else.

Kanade sat across the table with Maria, her smirk already visible. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table and stared right into Maria’s soul. “So~”

The searing heat of Maria’s anger and annoyance broke through her introspection. Finding Serena and Kanade wrapped around each other earlier that hour hadn’t helped her mood. “So _what?_ ”

“How’s yours and Tsubasa’s love life’s goin’? You weren’t spying on me and Serena on that entire plane ride, right?”

Maria looked away and crossed her arms. “That’s none of your business,” she said coldly in an effort to shut the conversation down.

Kanade didn’t take the hint. “Tsubasa’s my dearest friend. I simply want to know what’s up with her. She wouldn’t just tell me, but she’d tell you anything.” Kanade’s gaze suddenly changed from teasing to one of complete openness and acceptance.

Maria glared icily. “If I tell you, will you tell me what your intentions with my sister are?”

A hint of a grin crept back onto Kanade’s face. “What do you mean by intentions? Didn’t I literally scream ‘Don’t kill me, I didn’t marry Serena yet!’ just yesterday?”

Maria’s expression darkened significantly, and she didn’t answer. Kanade sighed heavily. “Anyways, I already told you some tricks when it comes to Tsubasa. Did you try them already?” Her smirk returned in full, any trace of the sweet and accepting smile now gone.

The anger in Maria’s expression faded, replaced by confliction and melancholy. Kanade’s own eyes softened and she took on a sad smile. “Didn’t work much, did they?”

“No,” Maria said, “they did not.” Her tone grew wistful and sad as she seemed to forget for a moment who she was talking to. “She might really not be interested in me…”

“Oh, she is. You’re just as oblivious as she is, though.” Kanade’s teasing smirk returned.

With a strangled ‘urk’ Maria remembered who she was talking to and returned to glaring at her angrily. It seemed that there was even more venom in her eyes than before. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes.

After a few moments of that vicious onslaught, Kanade sighed, her smirk draining from her face once again. “It hurts Serena that we can’t get along,” she said quietly.

“What?” Maria said. Her eyes narrowed. She knew Kanade was a master of charisma; surely this was just a tact to get on her good side. Her mind took that suspicion and ran with it, and before long her thoughts simmered with rage. _How underhanded,_ she thought. _If she thinks she can manipulate me like that using Serena…_

Maria’s anger blinded her to the genuine sadness on Kanade’s face. “She’d never say it, because she’d never do anything to cause anyone any trouble. But every time we get into one of these fights, she looks so sad…” She reached across the table and took the pinkette’s hand in her own, prompting a look of surprise and a curled lip from the pinkette. “I can’t stand seeing her in pain,” she said.

Maria hmphed, her face the very picture of contempt as she yanked her hand away.

Kanade actually looked a little hurt. After all, she was forcing herself to swallow her pride for this, and her frustration was threatening to break through that facade, but she kept her cool. _Do it for her,_ she reminded herself. “I’m serious. I know… I know what you think of our relationship, but I really do love her. I’d never, ever hurt her. To think that my actions cause her pain… it breaks my heart. So please, Maria.” She extended her hand once again. “Peace? For Serena’s sake?”

 _Never,_ Maria thought. Her protective instinct completely overruled her logic, leaving her unable to accept that Kanade might actually be telling the truth. But Kanade had backed her into a corner, and she couldn’t really refuse at this point. Externally, Maria forced a smile. “Sure,” she said, and shook Kanade’s hand. “For Serena’s sake… Kanade.”

Kanade seemed unconvinced, but she wasn’t about to undo the progress she thought she had made.

“You two getting along?” Serena said, walking up with a tray of fast food.

“I hope so.” Kanade said, with one more glance at Maria. “Where’s Tsubasa?”

“I’m right here,” Tsubasa announced, walking from behind Serena, carrying two trays in her hands. She placed one in front of Maria and sat beside her. Just as Kanade and Maria had disguised themselves again, Tsubasa had undone her ponytail and donned her sunglasses and flat cap. To any onlooker, she appeared to be simply a very chic young adult, and not at all one of the world’s most popular idols.

Kanade immediately smirked. “So I guess my meal is...” Her gaze slowly fell on Serena.

“Here, Kanade-san,” Ogawa said, putting a tray done in front of her.

Kanade started. “How long have you been standing there?!” she yelped. He raised an eyebrow, and Kanade shook her head in disbelief. “Way to ruin my chances, ninja dude,” she grumbled. “Do you ruin these love birds’ moments too?” She pointed at Maria and Tsubasa, who didn’t seem thrilled about the question.

Tsubasa frowned. “Kanade, I told you, we’re—” 

“Sure, lovebird,” Kanade cut her off.

“I—” Tsubasa looked at Maria, silently asking her help in shutting her friend up, but Maria was too busy hiding behind her meal.

“Heh,” Kanade’s playful grin widened. “Your girlfriend can’t help you.”

Tsubasa just rolled her eyes and focused on her meal instead.

Serena slid into the chair next to Kanade and began to eat. The two of them ate quietly as the conversation turned to discussing the upcoming concert. She glanced at her partner.

Kanade’s eyes twinkled as she caught Serena looking at her. “Mmmmmm, borgar,” she said through her food, just loud enough for the Airgetlám wielder to hear.

Serena giggled, but their time to eat was nearly up.

Ogawa tapped the table to get their attention. “Tsubasa-san and Maria-san have to head for London to prepare for their concert. There’s a car waiting for you outside to take you to your staging point at Brean Down.”

Serena nodded her understanding. “Good luck with your concert prep, you two. Here’s hoping we’ll be done in time to watch!”

Kanade slapped Tsubasa on the back, causing the blue-haired idol to nearly lose her balance. “Go do your thing.”

Tsubasa recovered and smiled at the two of them. “Thank you, really. We’ll do our best, and good luck in your own mission.”

Maria pulled her sister into a hug. “Take care of yourself,” she said.

Serena beamed. “Don’t worry, Sis! I’ll be fine.” She glanced at her girlfriend. “Besides, I’ve got Kanade to protect me!” She tried not to notice the tight, pained expression on her sister’s face at the name, and taking Kanade’s hand, she began to make her way to the car. 

* * *

The two of them spent the drive to the shore of the Bristol Channel in silence, taking in the picturesque English landscape. Kanade lounged in the backseat, her arm draped around Serena’s shoulder, as the shorter girl happily snuggled against her. If their driver was surprised at this, he gave no indication of it. Good thing, too; Kanade probably wouldn’t have taken kindly to being interrupted in that blissful moment.

As the car pulled to a stop on the Brean Down Peninsula, Kanade gently patted Serena’s head, and the two of them reluctantly separated. As they climbed out of the nondescript black sedan, a uniformed man approached them. With his white hair, goatee, and glasses, he put forth a dignified image. “You are the S.O.N.G. operatives we requested, yes?”

“We are,” Serena confirmed. “Good day,” she glanced at his epaulettes, “Colonel…?”

He seemed impressed that she knew his rank from insignia. “Whitfield,” he said. “Robert Whitfield.”

Kanade gave him a winning grin. “Alright! So what’s going on, Bob?” she said in heavily accented English.

He seemed slightly taken aback at her friendliness. After all, a 21 year-old former idol turned invincible song valkyrie didn’t exactly fit into the chain of command very well, so he had very little idea how to address her. “U-uh, of course, ma’am. If you’ll follow me.” He led them to a command tent nestled to the side. Noticing their perturbed expression as he lifted the flap to allow them inside, he explained: “Brean Down is usually staffed with a skeleton crew, and was ill-suited to handle a large scale operation, so following the recent events, we’ve been forced to expand our operations.”

Around the fabric walls of the tent were arrays of computer terminals and screens, all of which were unmanned, and cooling equipment to keep the processors from catching fire in the July heat. Both Kanade and Serena flinched at the wall of cold as they entered. But dominating the center of the tent was an impressive topographic map of the Bristol channel, with raised contours that gave it the look of a scale model with vertical exaggeration. A variety of pins were stuck in the model far out into the channel, near its deepest point. A tall, red flag stood straight up in a field of smaller blue pins.

Colonel Whitfield leaned on the table and pointed to the red pin. “That is the Avalon Research Station, and these—” he motioned to the blue pins “— are the locations where we’ve sighted Noise deployments.”

Kanade crossed her arms and nodded. “So we need to take them down first?”

Serena frowned. “There’s an awful lot of them to do a full frontal assault with just the two of us. The Alchemists could use the attack as a cover to escape with Excalibur. If we have to take them down, we have to do it fast.”

“Excalibur?” Whitfield frowned. “Pardon for a moment: am I cleared for this information?”

“Well, you are now,” Kanade cracked.

The Colonel didn’t know what to say to that. Serena rolled her eyes. “I guess you know now. There’s not much more to it. Excalibur is a complete relic, and it’s what we think the alchemists are after.”

Kanade cracked her knuckles. “So when can we dive?” she asked Serena.

Serena looked at her quizzically. “Why are you asking me?”

“Cause your mermaid gear is hot and I wanna see it again.” Kanade answered immediately.

 _What does that have to do with anything?!_ Serena’s eyes widened and she shot a glance at Whitfield, who seemed to be examining the topology of Cardiff very intently. Relieved at the man’s courtesy, she boxed Kanade’s ear and cleared her throat. “When do you want us out there, Colonel?”

He stopped his intensive study of the Welsh countryside and looked up at her. “Frankly? As soon as you’re ready.”

Kanade clapped her hands together. “Alright! Let’s go then!” She looked at Serena, her eyes sparkling and her dummy grin widening further

Whitfield nodded. “I’ll have a chopper prepped right away.” 

True to his word, after ten minutes of careening along the wind over choppy bay water, they had nearly reached the drop zone.

“This is as far as we can bring you,” Colonel Whitfield shouted over the wind. “Whenever we try to approach further, they start throwing fireballs and tornados at us.” The two of them nodded their understanding. “To make matters worse, the alchemists have some kind of heretical-tech jamming system set up, so you’ll be in a dead zone as soon as you hit the water,” he continued. “Good luck, you two.” He began to climb into the cockpit for a more comfortable chair for the flight back.

Kanade cracked her knuckles. “We won’t need luck to beat those lightweights.” She did the same with her neck, her expression betraying a certain glee at the prospect of an imminent fight.

Serena looked down at the water, then back at the Colonel. “Keep the alchemists pinned down while we work.” Whitfield nodded and slid the door to the cockpit closed. She turned back to Kanade.

The redhead was grinning ear to ear. “If this was an anime, this would be the beach episode. Looking forward to all the hot girls in sexy swimsuits.”

Serena put a hand on her hip and glared pointedly. “Oh? Just this one isn’t good enough?”

Kanade brushed past that comment. “Oh, you’re more than enough. As your biggest fan, I’m expecting some fanservice this episode.”

Serena blushed madly. “D-don’t get your hopes up, idiot!” She shook herself and gave Kanade a smile. “Shall we?”

Kanade rested her hand in hers and interlocked their fingers. “Totally.”

Together, they leapt from the craft, the words of their chants flying from their lips as they fell.


	5. Special Kabedon Technique

Like two gleaming meteors, they fell toward the sea in a trail of silver and flame as their armor adhered to their bodies. In perfect synchronicity, their legs fused into tails, lashing out as they broke the surface. The force of the impact would have shattered the bones of any ordinary human and left them a broken sack of blood, yet for the two shieldmaidens of song, it felt no worse than a gust of wind. The two of them dove deep into the murky water, leveling off just above the seafloor.

Because of the enormous tidal range of the Bristol Channel, buried in the muck at the bottom of the sea was a veritable graveyard of old shipwrecks, their insides long since picked over by historians, but the hulls left behind, forgotten in the mud. It was next to the wreck of a large, four-masted schooner that the two of them stopped to regroup.

Serena looked her partner’s aquatic armor up and down. “You look good,” she said.

“Working out really is worth it when you finally notice.” Kanade posed proudly, her subtle abs shining. “How about my arms?” She flexed an arm, her smirk widening.

“Hmmmm,” Serena hummed, running a hand along Kanade’s toned stomach. “But I get to see this every night without the rest of the wrapper,” she said, eliciting an uncharastic ‘eep!’ from her blushing partner.

“And your sister thinks _I’m_ the one who’s always horny,” she pouted, completely losing every non-bottom feeling she ever had.

Serena swam around behind her, making the mistake of interposing herself between Kanade and the ship. “Well, she’s mostly right, isn’t she?”

She quickly realized that that was a grave mistake indeed, as Kanade pinned her to the ship, pushing her body against Serena’s to keep her in place. “Maybe just a little.” She smirked, leaning on the arm she pressed beside Serena’s head.

The rotted wood creaked, but not loud enough to drown out Serena’s whine as she melted.

She leaned in closer. “Hmm…” She kissed her forehead. “You’re pretty cute when you melt like that. Maybe I should use my special kabedon technique more often.” She stayed silent for a moment, as if waiting for something. “I wonder if we can summon your sister all the way down here…” She smirked, her eyes glancing down to Serena’s rosy lips.

Serena managed to reclaim some of her composure, just enough to stammer “N-no t-tongue during missions!”

“Aw, what a shame. Guess my KANADE∞BEDON isn’t enough to get you in the mood for anything.” Kanade groaned and finally let Serena some space. “Fine, let’s get going. This place feels kinda _fishy_ to me.”

“Oh no, not this again,” Serena groaned.

Kanade grinned. “You can’t escape from me this time.”

“Not without making a suicidal charge into a wall of Alca-Noise alone, I can’t,” Serena sighed. “Guess I’d best resign myself to my fate.”

Kanade’s eyes widened, and for a moment she seemed to take Serena seriously. She grabbed her hand and interlocked their fingers. “You can’t do that. I won’t be able to marry you if you do that!”

Serena was still shaken by Kanade’s special kabedon attack. “W-what are you t-talking about?!” she sputtered, blushing furiously. “I’m not going to—”

“You don’t want to marry me?” Kanade cut through her words, looking at Serena with puppy eyes.

“I-I didn’t say that!” Serena stammered, unable to resist Kanade’s mesmeric eyes.

Suddenly, the puppy eyes vanished, replaced by Kanade’s usual smirk. “Oh, so you will marry me?”

By this point, Serena had been completely consumed by her blush, and all hope of regaining her composure was lost. A sudden image of Kanade in a tuxedo in front of an altar flitted in front of her eyes, which certainly didn’t help.

In the distance, Kanade spotted a bank of anemones behind Serena. Usually it would be inconceivable for an animal like that to live in an environment like this, but it turned out Shem-Ha had managed to do _some_ genetic remodeling before she’d been taken down. Why she’d prioritized non sapient life over humanity, nobody knew, but corals, bees, wild wolves, and many other nearly extinct animals besides had bounced back, to the point where they were even more populous and widespread than they were before the comprehensive environmental destruction of the late 20th century and early 21st century. It was impossible to believe, but the insane goddess had actually done some good by revitalizing the Earth's ecological diversity, albeit in a peculiar and ham-handed way.

 _Perfect._ She grabbed both of Serena’s hands into hers and gently pulled her towards the out-of-place cnidarians. “Hey,” She started, a charming smile spread across her face. “Why don’t we just leave everything behind and establish a family in this place?” She approached the anemones, running her hand through them, then retracting it as the animal’s cnidocytes tried to sting her hand through her gauntlet. “You could wait here while I quiet down this Noisy neighborhood. It won’t take long anyways, right?” She shot a glance at Serena, her charming smile only widening.

“B-b-b-but you can’t fight them alone!” Serena said, not thinking clearly enough to realize she had fallen victim to Kanade’s irresistible charisma. Kanade’s charm was like a high-energy region of the electromagnetic spectrum: it possessed so much power that the naked eye could not detect its full extent.

“Why’s that? As a caring wife, I should be able to defend my beloved~” She drifted closer to Serena, brushing her cheek. “No?”

Some tiny part of Serena was entirely upset at the reversal of roles here, but that part was buried beneath a huge, heavy weight of incoherent blubbering. “I won’t let you go off alone!” Serena shouted, and tackled Kanade in a hug and wrapped her tail around her protectively.

 _Crap… didn’t expect her to fall for it that hard. Now I just feel bad._ Kanade sighed to herself, nuzzling into Serena’s neck. “I guess I can’t stop you. Shall we go beat their asses together then?”

Serena slowly turned red as she realized what was going on, but the idea of admitting she’d had was entirely too embarrassing. “Y-yeah, let’s go,” she said, and with a swish of her tail, she released her partner.

Kanade patted Serena’s head, letting out a soft giggle. With her charming smile still present, she whispered, “You love me so much to agree to live in an anemone? I’m the luckiest clownfish alive, then.”

Serena desperately tried to regain her confidence. “And don’t you forget it!” she stammered.

Kanade ruffled her hair. “Oh, I won’t.”

Wordlessly, they turned and swam toward the facility, weaving between rocks and splintered wrecks. Occasionally they would run into a Noise or two, which they dispatched quickly and quietly. Finally, they reached a ridge overlooking the dropoff into a deeper part of the channel and peeked over the rise.

An unsightly mass of cubic steel chambers, trussed scaffolding, hexagonal corridors, and spherical relic containment vaults lay sprawled across the bottom of the sea. There were five vaults in total, each labeled with the name of the relic contained within in bold, black lettering. Serena’s eyes immediately locked onto the one labelled ‘Excalibur,’ sandwiched between a smaller sphere labelled ‘Clarent’ and an enormous one partially built into the rock, labelled ‘Serpent of the Loch.’ Connected to the main facility by a thin needle-like passageway, and on stilts a dozen meters above the mud and silt stood a spider-like complex of fourteen moon pools, separated from the rest of the station. Below the docks, three husks of burned out submarines lay smoking on the seafloor, no doubt the result of research staff trying to escape.

Serena clenched her fist in anger. _What was the point in killing them?_ Serena wondered to herself. _To keep word of Avalon’s fall from getting out? They can’t have truly believed that would work._ Serena’s whirling thoughts came to a final conclusion, one that made her sick: the alchemists had killed those people for no reason other than that they wanted to.

She shook off her nausea. “So how should we approach th—” Serena began, only to be interrupted by an unearthly shriek of metal on metal. The two of them watched, transfixed, as a crack formed on the surface of Clarent's vault. A shaft of molten light speared through the water, and all the Noise nearby grew agitated and swam away. With a thunderous blast, the chamber exploded, sending shrapnel raking through the facility. In a series of muffled _thunks_ , airlocks throughout the station failed, and enormous bubbles of air rose to the surface as the site depressurized. The lights across the facility flickered and died as the reactor flooded.

The two of them stared at the now silent ruin in shock. “What in the flying fuck was that?” Kanade practically shouted.

Serena flipped her knife over in her hand. “We need to get down there.” Kanade nodded her agreement, and in perfect sync, the two songstresses dashed over the rise and into the plain.

A patrolling alchemist was the first to notice their charge. He was quite the peculiar sight: black robes covered his head and body, as was normal for members of the Bavarian Illuminati, but over his face floated two nested hexagons, one blue and one green, in a symphony of the octaves of Aristotle designed to allow him to breathe underwater. The alchemist raised a hand, and a shimmering gold sigil appeared in his hand, before firing eight spears of alchemical brass.

Kanade spun her trident and deflected the spears, sending them careening into a swarm of approaching Noise and surrounding them in a cloud of dissolved alkahest. She dashed past the man’s other attacks and grabbed him by the collar.

“Hi!” she said brightly. “I know we just met and all, but I’ve got a question for you: does your weird alca-scuba spell turn off if you get knocked out?”

“H-huh?” the man stuttered, surprised by his enemy’s friendliness. “U-uh, no?”

“Good!” She gave him a winning smile and a Glasgow kiss. As the man’s limp body floated off, his spell still active, she turned her attention to the horde of Noise and alchemists. “You can knock them out, they won’t drown!” she shouted.

Serena didn’t respond, instead weaving a web of steel to trap an alchemist’s saber and fling it away. The blade tumbled into the dark depths of the sea, but before it was even out of sight, Serena whipped her dagger around and struck him in the face with the pommel. Without missing a beat, she extended the dagger into a chain sword and swung it in a wide, sweeping arc as she cleaved a half dozen Kraken Noise in twain.

Noise from across the plain had noticed them now, and began swimming toward the two women, all the while making that horrible low squelching noise as they moved. They hacked and slashed, their voices echoing across the water, but the Noise kept coming.

As a third wave of the hideous creatures approached, Kanade raised her trident above her head and began to twirl it rapidly, spinning the currents into a deadly spiral. “Serena!” she called.

Serena knew her partner well enough to know what she was planning. _Time to try out that unison attack we’ve been working on,_ she thought. _Wonder how it’ll work in water._ She fought her way across the battlefield until they were back to back. Their voices synchronized, and their song grew into a unison of wind and lightning. Kanade’s spear turned the water into a raging whirlpool, dragging the Noise toward them, flailing and shrieking. Serena flung her armed gear outward, directing it to orbit them at high speed. In a gleaming glitter of silver, the dagger duplicated itself once, twice, then more and more until a wide wheel of silver and steel surrounded them, ruthless and cold. Together, in a glorious MERROW†NOVA, they dragged the Noise to them and mulched them until the water ran red with alkahest.

Without the squeak of the Kraken Noise, the seafloor was unpleasantly quiet. The two exchanged a nod, and wordlessly, they made their way to the nearest breach in the facility’s hull.

* * *

Serena extended her hand and a tiny, flickering map of the facility appeared in her palm. It had been a grueling several hours. While the inside of the facility had been devoid of Noise, it had been teeming with alchemists, all of whom were more than willing to fire devastating spells at point blank range. Both she and Kanade were nursing second-degree burns from the last encounter. To make matters worse, whenever they’d captured an alchemist, they’d either clammed up and refused to say anything, or fought like mad. One of them had nearly slit Kanade’s throat with a concealed dagger before Serena knocked the weapon away. And the few who were willing to talk had been less than informative: it seemed that even the alchemists had no idea why the facility had so suddenly and violently exploded.

“We’re close,” she said, holding out the map so that Kanade could see.

Kanade smirked and pointed to the door ahead of them. “No shit,” she snarked. Bold lettering on the door read ‘EXCALIBUR VAULT AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’ split down the middle by the point where the secure doors met.

Serena huffed. “Well, I’m sorry for relying on the map instead of your sense of direction!”

“Hey!” Kanade protested. “What’s wrong with my sense of direction?!”

“You got lost in your own apartment when you moved in!”

Kanade rammed her trident into the floor and crossed her arms. “I was drunk! It wasn’t my fault!”

Serena kneaded her eyebrows with her free hand. “It’s a four room apartment! There’s not even a hallway! It’s literally just a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, and a bedroom—”

“I know which of those you like best,” Kanade cut in, hoping to save herself from this humiliation.

“Quiet, you,” Serena stammered as she blushed. “Let’s just go in.” She drew her knife from her gauntlet and wedged it into the crack between the doors. Using the silvery steel blade as a lever, she pried the doors open.

The sight that greeted them in the vault’s antechamber was truly arresting. The water inside was a translucent red, saturated with blood. Floating haphazardly through the water were a half-dozen robed alchemists, the nested blue and green hexagons of Aristotle’s aquatic and aerial octaves still flickering in front of some of their mouths. All of them sported brutal wounds to the gut, but ones that would not kill instantly. It looked as if these ones had been wounded by something further inside and attempted to retreat, only to expire before they reached safety.

“What… what the hell happened here?” Serena said, feeling bile rise in her throat as the smell of blood filtered through her nose.

“That’s… a helluva lot of dead people. You sure we’re supposed to go in?” Kanade frowned, fiddling with the trident into her hand.

Serena’s eyes glazed over. This scent of blood mixed with salt was reminding her of certain… unpleasant memories from her childhood. With a crack of thunder, the flashback overtook her.

_She clung to Maria tightly as the men in suits towered over them. They tried to back up, but they were already at the end of the pier. There was nowhere left to run, unless they wanted to dive into the freezing waters of the Black Sea. The rain roared down around them, soaking the rags they wore and the men’s suits all the same. “We’re here to help you,” their leader said in accented Ukrainian. “We’ll take you to our country, and you’ll be safe there.” He reached toward her._

_“Stay away from my sister!” Maria yelled, and tried to swat his hand away. He caught her arm with practiced ease and twisted her wrist until she cried out._

_“This is for your own good,” he said with a smile. “Don’t you know? The fruit that grows in the harshest conditions is always the sweetest. Your pain now only means you’ll be stronger later.”_

_“That’s not true!” Serena cried. She shrank back as the suited men advanced on her. “That’s not true…you’re just saying that to excuse you hitting us!”_

_“Uppity bitch,” one of the other men growled. He grabbed her by the collar, dragging her away from her sister and lifting her into the air. He raised his fist._

_Serena didn’t remember much about what happened next. Her face turned into a crackle of flickering pain and numbness. The only smells she could sense through her broken nose were seawater and blood. She could faintly hear Maria’s muffled screams through the hand clapped over her mouth, and someone else calling her name._

_“Serena?”_

“Serena?! Serena!” Her vision cleared to reveal Kanade’s worried eyes. Serena swallowed, breathing heavily and shaking a little as she desperately tried to blink away the flashback. Kanade put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey… you okay?”

She looked into those big, warm, caring eyes and took a deep breath. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be okay. Sorry…”

Kanade pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay,” she said, squeezing her tightly. “I’m here for you.” They stayed like that for a few minutes, Serena unwilling to leave the warmth of Kanade’s arms, and Kanade unwilling to break the embrace and leave Serena in the cold. “Shhh. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Serena nodded into her shoulder. “Thanks,” she said. 

The redhead released her and looked around. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, pulling Serena toward the decontamination chamber. The defunct system did nothing to impede them as Kanade ripped the door off the hinges. As they drifted through, Serena breathed deeply in relief as the stench of blood faded away. Unfortunately, that mental obstacle had been replaced by a very physical one. A thick vault door stood in the way, sealed securely.

Kanade cracked her knuckles. “Guess I’m up.” She slammed her fist into the metal, caving it inward and separating the two doors ever so slightly. With a grunt, she wedged her fingers into the gap and began to pull them apart. Serena felt her mind go a little blank in a gay panic as she watched the considerable muscles in Kanade’s back and arms flex under her wild hair and skinsuit. It was a welcome treat after what she’d just gone through. With a screech of metal, the doors buckled and slid open.

Kanade stretched and turned around to Serena. “Okay, I’m-” She paused, seeing how Serena stared at her. “You okay there?” She smirked.

“Hmmm?” Serena said absently. “Huh? Oh, sorry! I’m good.”

“C’mon, let’s go. You can stare at me doing sexy stuff later,” she said with a wink.

A voice echoed from inside the chamber “You are unlike the others,” it intoned. Serena and Kanade shielded their eyes as the room lit up, the corpses creating a morbid imitation of corpuscular rays.

They exchanged glances, and slowly entered the vault.


	6. The Immortal Enchantress of Avalon Isle

The shining figure leveled an equally radiant sword at them. “You are unlike the others,” it repeated. “Who are you, maidens of war?”

“Damn,” Kanade rubbed her eyes, blinking to try and adjust to the light. “Just a pair of lesbians searching for a magic sword. Could you not blind us?”

“My apologies,” it said. The radiant light dimmed, revealing a beautiful woman. Long black hair floated free in a fan behind her head, framing a noble, angular face that evoked a feeling of contempt independent of her expression. Her eyes were a deep, intractable black, and together with her sharp nose, she was the pinnacle of western aristocratic beauty. “You called yourselves… lesbians? I must admit, I have not heard of that kingdom. Did the king of Lesbia send you to retrieve this blade?”

Serena poked Kanade and leaned close to her ear. “Do we tell her?” she whispered.

Kanade’s smirk widened. “Nah,” She whispered, then coughed into her hand to catch the enchantress’ attention. “Actually, I  _ am _ the king of Lesbia. I’ve come here with my queen.” Serena nearly choked on the water she breathed.

If the figure was confused, she didn’t show it. “If you seek Excalibur, then you must know that it will not be granted to just anyone.” She motioned toward the corpses that littered the room. “As you can see, a trial by combat will not suffice.”

The blush on Serena’s face at being called Kanade’s queen dropped, replaced by a shocked pallor. “Wait,  _ you  _ killed them all?”

The woman’s lips contorted in an imperious smirk. “Lesser seekers who cannot accept their failures do not deserve my mercy. If they refuse to depart upon being found unworthy, I have no qualms about disposing of them.”

Serena opened her mouth to retort, but before she could question the enchantress’s apparent ruthlessness, Kanade cut in. “Oh, we didn’t really think of fighting you, so there’s no reason to kill us.” Kanade, unbothered by how cold everything around this place was, smirked. “C’mon, you won’t just kill us anyways, right? You’re too pretty to do such a cruel thing.”

She ignored Kanade’s attempt at flirtatious flattery. “I am Nimuë, the enchantress of the Isle of Avalon. What are your names, seekers?”

“My name’s Amou Kanade. My queen here is Serena Cadenzavna Eve,” Kanade said immediately with peerless confidence.

Behind her, Serena was blushing terminally. “U-um, g-greetings, Lady Nimuë. It is our solemn duty to bring Excalibur to our homeland. What must we do to prove ourselves worthy?” She managed to regain her composure towards the end.

Kanade swam a tad closer, intent on using her charms and wiles... “Don’t we look worthy enough? How many kings and queens come to you for us to not look worthy enough? Besides, a pretty lady like you doesn’t need such a big sword.”

Nimuë was unimpressed. “I am merely the blade’s keeper. Even unarmed, I am more than capable of eliminating unworthy seekers.” She looked down her nose at Kanade with a smirk. “And pray tell, if a pretty lady has no need of a sword, and you wish to take it from me, what does that make you?”

Both Serena and Kanade grasped her meaning immediately. Kanade’s lip curled in anger at the flippant insult. Serena’s eyes darkened.  _ How pointlessly rude, _ she thought. Serena swam past Kanade and interposed herself between the smug enchantress and the infuriated lancer. “What do you want of us, Nimuë?” she asked, her voice significantly colder. For the sake of her mission, she remained diplomatic, but she felt no obligation to be overly warm to someone who had insulted her partner for  _ fun. _

Nimuë leveled her smirk at Serena. “Why do you seek Excalibur, oh  _ queen _ ?” she asked mockingly.

Serena struggled to remain civil. “I wish to bring it to my homeland, so that it can be used to protect people from the very same menace that attacked you today.”

Nimuë’s smirk softened into a nostalgic smile. “You remind me of him.” She reached out and placed two fingers against the brunette’s head, prompting Kanade to hiss in anger, and glare at Nimuë as if she wanted to rip her arm off.

Serena felt  _ something  _ touch her mind. Her thoughts immediately recoiled away; it felt wet and slimy, insofar as a mind could. But past that oily surface, she felt their thoughts brush against each other. Nimuë’s mind was one of vast complexity, grand apathy, and a labyrinthian structure that was certainly not human. The contact lasted less than a second, but in that time she felt Nimuë leafing through her conscious, touching fragments of memories and aspects of her personality before flitting off to the next neuron. Serena shivered.

Nimuë broke off the contact and the connection between them was gone as soon as it had appeared. “You are worthy of wielding Excalibur.” She placed the weapon in Serena’s hands. The smirk returned. “Far more so than your ‘king.’”

Serena belted the sword on.  _ Alright, _ she thought,  _ now I don’t have to be nice to you anymore, bitch. _

“We have Excalibur. We’re done here,” she said to Kanade.

There was no answer.

“Kanade?” she said, turning to her partner. What she saw nearly stopped her heart.

Kanade lay convulsing in the corner, black mist swirling around her body. She looked like she was drowning. Her eyes seemed waxy, dull, and lifeless, save for the occasional spark of vermillion energy that entered them. All the while, Nimuë watched with nothing more than a bemused expression. “Kanade!” Serena screamed.

She reached for her partner, only for a delicate but strong hand to grasp her arm and hold her back. “Do not touch it,” Nimuë hissed.

Through her panic, Serena barely managed to process what she said. “What’s happening to her?” she cried. She strained against Nimuë’s iron grip, but to no avail.

The fainted tinge of a bemused smile alighted on Nimuë’s lips. “You saw the explosion earlier, yes?”

“Yes, but—”

“This place seems to be a collection of powerful weapons,” Nimuë cut her off, cool and calm despite Serena’s panic. “Contained here was Clarent, a weapon from my time. So far as I have gleaned from the minds of lesser seekers—” she gestured with her other hand at the floating corpses “—the fools seem to have broken it and released the spirit within. For the past hour, it has swirled around, seeking an appropriate host.” She smirked. “It seems to have found one.”

Serena’s jaw dropped open in horror. “You  _ knew  _ it was there? You  _ knew,  _ and you let it happen?!” Her anger momentarily surpassed her fear for her partner.

Nimuë made no more effort to suppress her smile. “She was found unworthy. What obligation do I have to protect her?”

Serena clenched her fists, feeling a sudden urge to close her hands around Nimuë’s neck and tear her head off. Wisps of black and red energy crackled along the length of her body as her gear approached its berserk state.

All that rage gave way to fear as Kanade gave one final thrash with a choked gurgle, and went still. “KANADE!” Serena screamed, but Nimuë still held her fast. Slowly, Kanade’s body began to move. Examining her hands and arms, and feeling the muscles that lined her body. “Kanade?” Serena said in a small, broken voice.

The figure with Kanade’s face looked up at Serena, and she felt her blood turn to ice. All the warmth in Kanade’s red eyes were gone, replaced by a hateful fire that flickered a furious, angry red. A snarl was draped on her lips, and her fingers were curled into claws. It was like she was a different person.

“Mordred,” Nimuë said in a neutral voice. “I will confess I did not expect to see you again.” She released Serena and curtseyed in greeting.

Taking full advantage of her captor’s distraction, Serena rushed forward. Surely Nimuë was mistaken! When she reached her, Kanade would be there to take her in her arms and tell her everything was alright. She had to be.

An armored gauntlet slammed into her jaw, very nearly making her bite her tongue off. “Do not touch me, wench,” the thing inside Kanade said, and slammed her head into the wall, leaving a deep dent in the armor plating. Dazed, Serena drifted away, as the thing advanced on her, trident raised. It grabbed her by the neck, armored fingers closing around her throat. “You carry my father’s sword,” it growled. “Do you mean to follow his legacy?”

“Please… Kanade…” Serena gasped.

The specter threw her to the ground and raised Gungnir, the trident’s tines glowing a dull, pulsing, molten red. Silently, it fell.

Serena tried to roll out of the way, but dazed as she was, there was only so much she could do. With a searing pain, one of the tines pierced her side. She screamed— what else was there to do? When she had sung her swan song, everything had been numb. Her body had shrieked in agony, but the shock had isolated her from it. Now, it was different. This was lucid. It was vivid. And it  _ hurt. _

Suddenly, the spear stopped twisting. Shaking in pain and fear, Serena slowly turned toward Mordred, afraid of what she would see. What she saw then was possibly the worst possible nightmare.

The cold fire was gone. Her body still glowed with dark power, but the eyes were undoubtedly Kanade’s. But Serena had never seen Kanade look so afraid.

“Pl...ease,” she choked out. “Run…” Her hands shook as she slowly pulled the trident back.

Serena’s eyes widened.  _ How could I abandon you here? _ Her mind screamed.  _ No! I won’t leave you! _ But her body betrayed her, and with labored strokes of her tail, she fled, leaving behind a wispy trail of blood and tears.


	7. Tears of the Silver Warmaid

Maria paced along the pebble beach. Serena and Kanade were supposed to have checked in hours ago. Her imagination ran wild, proposing nightmarish possibilities that she didn’t want to think about. Beside her, Tsubasa sat on a boulder clutching a pile of blankets she had brought for when they returned.

Maria and Tsubasa had finished their arrangements for the day, having met with Tsubasa’s record company, spoken with the administration of the Millenium Dome to iron out the details of the event, and completed a full rehearsal of the choreography. At the end of the night, they expected to meet Kanade and Serena for dinner and hear an account of a successful mission. When they heard that the duo was missing in action, both of them had dropped everything and rushed to Brean Down.

“Where could they be?” Maria thought aloud. She tried to seem stoic, but her worry broke through into her voice.

Tsubasa gently draped one of the blankets along Maria’s shoulders. “They’re alright, I’m sure.” She too tried to hide her worry, and failed miserably.

The sound of something breaching the surface caught both of their attention. Maria whirled around, flinging the blanket away to see her sister dragging herself ashore. “Serena!” She rushed over and cradled her sister in her arms. She was haggard; blood oozed from a ragged hole in her side and her already naturally pale complexion was an unhealthy bone white. Her unfocused eyes stared off into the distance. If not for the rise and fall of her chest, she could easily be mistaken for a walking corpse.

Tsubasa stiffened.  _ No… _ Terrifying thoughts plagued her consciousness. “Where… where’s Kanade?”

“Kanade…” Serena shook as she grabbed her sister and pulled her into a seawatery hug.

A cloud of suspicion joined the worry and concern in Maria’s features as she looked at Serena’s wound. “Serena, what happened?”

None of them were prepared for the words that came next. “Kanade… Kanade is gone.” She broke down sobbing, wailing as she buried herself in her sister’s arms.

Tsubasa’s heart stopped as she tried to repeat those words in her mind. She knew she shouldn’t have left them alone. She and Maria could have done it quicker and safer. She dropped everything she held in her hands and moved closer to Serena. “How...?” She practically whispered.

With a roar of water, the tides formed into the shape of a flower, which swirled open like a rose to reveal a certain enchantress, sporting a smirk that was truly inappropriate for the situation. “The foolish girl was possessed by a spirit,” she laughed. “No fault of her own, I suppose.

Serena wiped her eyes angrily and gripped the hilt of her sword tightly. “ _You_ ,” she snarled

Tsubasa wrapped her arms around Maria protectively.  _ If I can at least protect one person I love… _ She thought, glaring at the threat in front of her eyes.

Maria placed her hand over one of Tsubasa’s, grateful for the contact. “Who are you?”

Nimuë’s smirk widened. “I am Nimuë, the enchantress of the lake, guardian of the holy sword Excalibur, and—”

“—and a real bitch,” Serena finished.

Nimuë blinked. For once, she seemed to have been caught off guard. “Excuse me?”

Serena dispelled her gear and shakily got to her feet, using Excalibur as a cane to help her stand. She leveled the sword at Nimuë. “You  _ knew. _ You knew this would happen to Kanade and you just  _ let it happen _ .”

Nimuë scoffed. “I told you, I have no obligation to protect her.” She turned her nose up and smirked. “Besides, it is not as if anything of value was truly lost.”

Serena shook with rage. “Fuck you,” she spit. Maria flinched in surprise. She had never heard Serena swear before, much less with such vehemence and overwhelming hatred.

Nimuë scoffed again, blind to Serena’s rage. Perhaps she noticed it and didn’t care, or perhaps she enjoyed it. “Perhaps Mordred’s tenancy will be an improvement.”

“FUCK YOU!” Serena screamed, and slashed the sword at Nimuë on instinct. An ethereal shockwave of white energy leapt from the blade, reminiscent of Ame no Habakiri’s Azure Flash, only shining a radiant silver and exponentially larger.

Nimuë smirked further. As the light passed through her, her body disintegrated into a mass of freshwater, much like Garie’s water-clones had back when they had fought the autoscorer. The empyreal blade slammed into the cliff, cleaving off several hundred tons of rock into the sea with a deafening boom.

Maria and Tsubasa looked at Serena in shock at the enormous power she had just displayed, but the Airgetlám wielder’s eyes glazed over as the adrenaline subsided, and she crumpled to the ground in a faint.

* * *

Together, Maria and Tsubasa carried Serena to the Fort’s infirmary. The staff gave them a wide berth. The many looks of confusion and worry made it clear: even if they didn’t know what had happened, they knew something was wrong, and they knew that now was not the time to ask.

They laid the unconscious wielder on the nearest cot and bandaged her wound. Maria’s lip curled as she worked. The wound was semi-cauterized, as if the weapon that had caused it radiated an extreme heat. She worked on a wound just like it before, when Tsubasa’s sword had grazed her side during the Frontier incident. There was little doubt: a relic had done this. Tsubasa no doubt noticed it too, as she’d been dealt a similar wound by Maria’s own Gungnir.

Maria and Tsubasa exchanged glances. They had done as much as they could; now all that remained was to stay with Serena and wait for her to regain consciousness.

A half hour later, the brunette’s eyes flicked open, and she gave a delirious groan. The moment Tsubasa saw Serena’s eyes open, she rushed to her, her expression a mix of worry and shock. “What happened down there? I need to know everything,” she pressed, desperate for any clue of what really happened to her best friend.

Serena’s eyes focused, and a cloud of despair crashed down on her as she started stammering out a disjointed account of what happened. “W-we found the sword with Nimuë, and we were talking to her to get her to give it to us… she was awful to Kanade, so I stepped in and convinced her to give it to me.” She started hyperventilating. “And then Kanade… she…”

“She  _ what _ ?” Tsubasa’s voice simmered with quiet anger. She didn’t know who or what her anger was directed at, or if she was simply angry at the world for taking Kanade from her again. Perhaps she was just angry at herself for letting this happen. She tried to calm herself. Her gaze still pierced deep into Serena’s soul, but in the gentlest way she could.

“She… she started having a seizure,” she said, desperately trying to catch her breath. “There was this… miasma around her. I tried to go to her, but Nimuë held me back. When she finally let me go, I rushed to her, and she… whatever the thing in her was, it… it tried to  _ kill _ me.” She touched the bandage at her side. “It stabbed me… and then Kanade seemed to regain control for a second. She held it back, and begged me to run.” She hung her head in her hands, the tears dripping down her arms. “Why did I leave her?”

Maria placed a hand on Serena’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her. Suddenly, Tsubasa stood, and looked out the windows with clenched fists. “Kanade’s not gone.”

The door slid open, and there was a muffled thump outside the door as the guard they’d stationed there fell dead. His slack-jawed face stared at them from the floor as the last person anyone wanted to see right now stepped over the corpse. Nimuë smirked that infuriating smirk. “She may as well be.”

Serena reached for her sword, but it was just out of reach, and she winced in pain as she tried to bend her abdomen to reach it. Instead, she settled for baring her teeth in anger. “What do  _ you _ want?” she snarled.

Nimuë swirled her dress. “Perhaps you might not expect it of me, but I have something of a feud with Mordred. He did kill the last wielder of Excalibur, after all.”

“You two seemed pretty friendly back there,” she hissed. She glared daggers so hard one might expect an INFINITE†CRIME to fire out of her turquoise eyes.

Nimuë ignored her. “So, I imagined you would want to know how to destroy Mordred. No need to thank me.” She bowed mockingly.

The idea of getting Kanade back blinded Tsubasa to Nimuë’s conniving expression. “There’s a way to bring her back?” Tsubasa demanded. “Tell us.”

Nimuë’s smirk widened into a too-large inhuman toothy grin that left them all unsettled. “It is simple. Drive the point of Excalibur into the host’s heart, and it will excise and destroy the spirit.”

The flames in Tsubasa’s eyes were quickly put out. Completely in a loss of words, all her body could do without destroying anything was to glance at Serena.

Serena clenched her fists. A splotch of red appeared on Serena’s bandage as the tension in her muscles ripped open the thin scab on her wound. “What makes you think we would do that?”

For the first time, a flash of anger crossed Nimuë’s face. “You would allow that creature to live?”

Serena gripped the edge of the cot tightly as she struggled to sit upright. “I won’t kill Kanade,” she said.

Nimuë’s lip curled and she stormed across the room, checking Maria out of the way. She grabbed Serena’s collar and lifted her off the cot. “How dare you. The moment you took that sword, you were contracted to me. So be silent, and OBEY!”

The moment Nimuë lifted Serena off the ground, Tsubasa’s sentinel instincts kicked in. She seized a scalpel from a nearby surgical tray, and slashed across Nimuë’s arm, dying the samite sleeves bloodred. The enchantress hissed in pain and threw Serena back on the cot. Tsubasa dashed forward and made to drive the blade into her throat, only to be drenched by a sudden downpour as the Lady of the Lake burst into a mass of freshwater. Letting the water wash over her body, Tsubasa finally regained her cool. “We’re not obeying any weird lady who’s trying to erase Kanade forever.”

Serena sat there on her cot in shock, her arms around her knees as she rocked back and forth on her cot. “Serena…” Maria whispered, and hugged her sister. “Tsubasa… could I have a few moments with my sister?”

Tsubasa paused, then nodded and placed the bloody scalpel in the sink. “I’ll leave you alone, then.”

* * *

They two of them sat together for what felt like an eternity. Maria felt as if Serena's soul was just as gone as Kanade's was.  _ Why does she love that weird pervert, anyways? _ Maria hissed at the thought. At this point, she wasn't sure. Her sister was a grown woman, yet she refused to treat her like one. She thought that this was just a silly crush, that dumb first love that never lasts. But here she was, watching as her sister mourned over her lost lover, while she herself was completely powerless to help her.

She hated it. She hated how  _ useless _ she felt, not being able to even cheer up her beloved sister. She thought she’d finally conquered this part of herself, this snarling inadequacy, when she’d killed Garie, but here it was, rearing its ugly head. All she could do was to hold Serena closer and embrace her physically.

Serena began trembling weakly against Maria's arms. “It's my fault.” She cried her words out weakly. She felt like she was vomiting them out, rather than simply speaking. “If I thought… even a little bit harder…” Her voice cracked. “Maybe… maybe Kanade would be here… with us. If only I saw through that disgusting witch's plans… If I’d just been faster…” She let her head hang loose as she began sobbing quietly.

“Serena…” Maria's voice wasn't that far from cracking either, yet she held it stiff. She gently pulled Serena closer to her chest, letting her rest and try to ease her mind even the slightest bit. 

Being pulled into such a warm and gentle embrace, images of Kanade’s smiling face flashed through Serena's mind again. “...Kanade…” She gripped her hold around Maria as much as she could, tears flowing down her cheeks only harder and faster.

_ She really does love her, _ Maria realized. She pulled her sister closer.  _ What have I done?  _ She thought.  _ Kanade might be gone forever, and I… I made some of her last memories of her poisonous.  _ She kicked herself internally.  _ I’ve been a fool. _

Serena’s sobs became a full-on wail. “How could I let this happen?!”

“Shhh,” Maria murmured, desperate to calm her sister down. “It’s going to be okay.”

Her sister lurched within her embrace as she hiccuped. “How?” she said weakly. “Kanade is gone. I’ll never feel her touch again,” She looked up into Maria’s eyes. “The world seems so cold without her…”

Maria felt tears rising within her.  _ I’ve been a fool, _ she repeated to herself.  _ Who am I to decide who Serena loves?  _ She wanted to apologize, but she knew that interjecting her own realization would be an act of supreme selfishness, and she couldn’t do that to her sister. Instead, she just pulled her closer.

_ This is awful. _ Maria thought. She felt the urge to join her sister in crying, but if she'd burst into tears, the whole purpose of her embrace would be gone. She could only stay silent, letting her sister cry her sorrows out. This couldn't go on; she had to do something about it. But she couldn't. Not alone.

* * *

Tsubasa leaned against the wall, trying not to think about the smear of blood on the ground where the previous guard had fallen before she’d had the fortress staff carry him away. This was supposed to have been a simple mission. A quick six hours and then Serena and Kanade could essentially enjoy a vacation in England for the week before the concert. And then they’d all go home together. And now… that simple mission had ended in disaster.

The door opened a crack and Maria stuck her head out. “Tsubasa, could you come in? We need to talk about our next steps.” Tsubasa took a second to look into Maria’s eyes. She felt like something was gnawing on her heart, seeing how Maria looked. The pink-haired idol looked extremely emotionally fragile. Tsubasa nodded, and followed her inside.

If Maria had looked fragile, Serena looked worlds worse. The look on her face reminded her of herself when she had lost Kanade the first time. Tsubasa was immediately hit by a heavy and gloomy feeling that permeated the room. Suddenly, her own problems felt as tiny as Elfnein. “...I don’t think we can discuss anything in this state,” she whispered to Maria.

“I…” Maria paused. “Tsubasa, we can’t leave her like this. We have to do something. We have to help her.”

Tsubasa nodded, then knelt down and took one of Serena’s hands. “Don’t worry, Serena,” she said. “We’ll get Kanade back.”

That snapped her out of her fugue. “What are you talking about?” she said.

“You’re injured,” Tsubasa said. “You need to go to a hospital. So, rest, and Maria and I will take care of this. We’ll bring Kanade back.”

Serena jerked her hands away. “Absolutely not,” she snapped.

“But—”

“I’m not leaving Kanade behind!” she tried to shout. In her condition, it sounded more like a groan.

“That wound will slow you down,” Tsubasa said. “And if you push yourself too much, it could kill you.”

“I don’t care! The only way I’m leaving this fort is if I’m going back down to Avalon.” She pointed to the holy sword. “Besides, I’ve already synchronized with Excalibur. Throwing away that advantage would be stupid.”

Tsubasa gripped her shoulder tightly and mustered as much sternness as she could. “I’m not letting you put yourself in danger. That decision is final.”

Serena shoved Tsubasa’s hand away. “I’m not going to let you send me away. If you go down there, I’m going too. And  _ that  _ decision is final.” Her determination faded as her mood swung back to despondency. “I’m not sure what good it would do, though.”

Tsubasa looked towards Serena.  _ What would Kanade do in this situation?  _ She thought. Memories of her old partner raced through her mind, and she suddenly felt a surge of confidence. “Hey,” She walked over to her and knelt down in front of her. “You know she isn’t gone.” She tried to put the most confident smile she could ever muster. Kanade would always smile at her like this, after all. “We only need to bring her back.”

Serena looked completely miserable, the brazen attitude from before completely gone. “I don’t… I don’t know if we can.” She buried her head in her heads. “Maybe the kindest thing to do is to put her out of her misery.”

Tsubasa froze for a second in horror at the suggestion. But she snapped out of it just as quickly, and suddenly pulled Serena into a hug. A hug so gentle, yet so strong. The best Tsubasa could manage, actually. “Don’t give up on your love like this. Reach out, and grasp it with your own two hands. Kanade would say the same thing.” She patted Serena’s hair softly. “You don’t want to do this, either.”

Serena looked like she was about to start crying again. “I don’t… I don’t want to kill her.”

Tsubasa released her from the hug and smiled at her. “In that case, just punch your way through logic, like Tachibana does all the time.”

“So what? I just hug her in X-Drive and that saves her? Metanoia isn’t one of my moves.” she scoffed. “Besides, it can’t be that easy.”

Maria’s voice broke through her despair. “Well, often in European fairy tales, curses could be dispelled by true love’s kiss.” In unison, but Tsubasa’s and Serena’s heads swiveled slowly to look at Maria in confusion and surprise.

Tsubasa blinked. As someone who saw and heard Maria’s complaints and discomforts about Kanade firsthand, this definitely wasn’t an option she’d thought she would hear coming out of Maria’s mouth. “...Interesting.” She simply nodded with a suspicious expression.

“Your plan can’t seriously be to have me go  _ kiss  _ her, presumably while that thing is trying to kill me?” Serena demanded, unconvinced.

“It’s the best plan we have so far,” Maria said. None of them even bothered mentioning Nimuë’s suggestion.

“Distraction is a very important part of a plan.” Tsubasa pointed out. “It’s still Kanade, and it’s still her mind in there somewhere, too.”

Serena frowned. “So you’re saying that Kanade might be able to hold him back?”

“Didn’t she do just that when you fought the first time?” Maria said with a shrug.

Tsubasa put a hand on Serena’s shoulder. “Kanade’s down there waiting, knowing you’ll come save her. She believes in you. You should believe in her too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, when we began writing Moonlight Serenade, we largely left the question of “how are Kanade and Serena alive?” at a simple, noncommittal “Don’t worry about it.” We haven’t really come up with a definite answer yet (We might as we continue writing in this timeline) but there are some things worth noting:  
> From the previous chapter, we know that Serena did in fact sing her swan song at the FIS facility. Whether or not it actually killed her isn’t mentioned, but since she's an adult, we know it isn't the justification given in XDU. But, in this chapter, it specifically says the Tsubasa is afraid of losing Kanade “again.” So in that case, Kanade really did die. One of the going options for how they’re alive is the premise that somehow, the phantoms in Yggdrasil from XV13 came back to life. So that’s probably the explanation we’re going with, but we’ve not decided yet. For the moment, the answer is still “Don’t worry about it.”


	8. True Love’s Kiss

Mordred lounged on an empty desk chair, tail flicking back and forth, twirling a pen in his fingers. Such a delightful contraption that hadn’t existed in his time, an elegant fusion of a stylus and a quill, now utterly ruined by the water.

His hand twitched involuntarily and the pen spun off into the corner of the room. With a grunt of frustration, he delved into the core of his mind. Within his thoughts, the feminine frame he occupied in reality melted away into his stocky, masculine form, bearded and framed by long ragged black hair. Black armor, etched with graceful, hornlike curves adorned his body, a perfect match to the gloom of his mental kingdom. But in the center of the shadow stood the greatest prize of all: the former owner of the body that was now his. Sturdy black straps wrapped around her arms and legs, and coated the curves of her body tightly. She was soundly immobilized, with only her head and wild hair floating free. “Why do you insist on disobeying me, woman?” he said as he drifted into the virtual mindspace. 

“SHUT YOUR BITCHASS MOUTH,” Kanade snarled. Being controlled was one thing, but she was  _ dying _ to beat the hell out of him for hurting her girlfriend, more than anything. And with her own hands? Unforgivable. “OBEYING AN OLD MAN LIKE YOU? That’s true clownery.”

Mordred tsked. “Such a vulgar woman. I will admit, your expletives are quite creative, far more so than even the jesters of my father’s court.”

Kanade rolled her eyes in annoyance. “You’re callin’ me a woman as if it’s a curse.” She scoffed. “GET YOUR UGLY ASS OUTTA HERE, FUCKFACE!”

Mordred paused. “That one in particular must be a creation of your time.” He grabbed her jaw and forced her to look him in the eye, meeting her livid glare with his own cold, calculating gaze. “We shall have plenty of time for you to teach me this language of yours. After all, I am here to stay.” He laughed, released her, and drifted back away as she tried to sink her teeth into him.

Kanade glared back at him with a look of pure hatred. “...How about we start with the phrase ‘fuck off’, ‘cause your disgusting ass attitude really makes me wanna beat those words into you.”

He smirked. “Yes, let’s. I regret to say I am unfamiliar with that term.”

“Oh, it’s simple. To fuck is to engage in sexual intercourse,” Kanade said helpfully, in an uncharacteristically articulate way. “But it’s become something of a catch-all swear, able to be used in basically any part of speech. So when I say ‘fuck off,’ what that means is  _ FUCK OFF! _ ”

“I see,” Mordred said coldly. “Perhaps I ought to teach you to be more polite, woman.” He raised a hand and curled it into a fist.

“I DARE YOU TOUCH ME YOU COWARD, I’LL BITE YOUR FUCKING HAND OFF,  _ MAN _ ,” Kanade roared. Her raging fury made it clear she didn’t fear him, and that infuriated the demonic knight to no end.

Mordred sighed. “Very well.” He cocked his fist and threw the punch. With a sound like screeching metal, Kanade tore her arm out of her bounds and caught the punch. Her eyes looked positively murderous. With a snarl, Mordred tried to pull away, but she held him fast. 

She glared into his eyes. “Underestimating me is a mistake, fucko,” she hissed, her voice lower than the bottom of the ocean.

Mordred gave a growl and narrowed his eyes. “You will learn to obey,” he snarled. In his other hand, he summoned Gungnir’s trident and brought the haft down on her head.

The redhead’s eyes widened as the weapon fell toward her. With a crack, the haft struck her temple. She couldn’t help but cry out as her consciousness faded and she went slack in her bonds. The black tendrils wrapped around her free hand, imprisoning it once again.

“Tch,” Mordred said. He resurfaced in his mind, opening his eyes to the abandoned chamber in Avalon. “Perhaps I ought to train her to associate disobedience with pain…”

He started as the steel door to his chamber groaned. A white-hot spot appeared on the blackened metal, the water boiling around it. With one final screech, cracks spiderwebbed across the metal, and the door exploded inward. A silver flash shot out from the billowing particulates and materialized into an angry mermaid with a very large sword. She slammed into him and pinned him by the neck against the bulkhead. “I’m back, bitch,” she said.

* * *

[A few minutes earlier]

After what seemed to be forever, Serena returned to the place she could simply describe as hell. The pain of the wound on her abdomen suddenly felt like nothing compared to the mental anguish she was beginning to feel. Swimming through the facility, that pain only grew stronger. Dead alchemists floating amid streaks of blood and bloated viscera became a sight all too common to her. She couldn’t begin to imagine what horrible things that  _ monster _ might have been doing with something as strong as Kanade’s body.

Finally, she reached a pair of doors. Ones she could have a single sweet memory of, but soon enough turned into yet more fuel to feed the growing pain in her chest. Now, the crumpled steel had been melted and reformed into a blackened, spiky slag reminiscent of the gates of hell.

She gripped the sword in her hand and slowly raised it just above her head. Taking a deep breath, she placed the point of Excalibur against the door and channeled as much energy as he could into it. Airgetlám hummed on her wrist as it drew power from her surroundings. Excalibur glowed white, and the slag began to melt, hissing as the water around it boiled. With a thunderous blast, lightning arched from the spine of the blade to the edges of the door and blasted it inward.

With a whip of her tail, Serena charged through the door and burst through the billowing smoke, slamming into the body of the woman she loved. She looked the specter in the eye with a murderous glare. The creature had changed Kanade’s gear combination into something… dark, something  _ wrong.  _ The twin spikes that usually adorned the crown Kanade’s head had curled into onyx horns that curved behind her wild hair. Likewise, her armor had been smoothed and curved in a conchoidal pattern that evoked tongues of basalt rising from pulsating lava. Lines of that very same fiery, magmatic orange ran across her body, lighting the gaps in her armor with a fearful fervor. And her tail had grown wild and wicked in this demonic form; gone were the delicate pearly scales that made her so colorful. In their place were inelegant black obsidion plates, the armor of a hideous hellfiend. Spikes and spines ran the length of her body, and her fins were rigid and metallic. In her hand, Gungnir had been twisted into something far darker than even Maria’s Black Gungnir had been. The bold angles of the trident were melted into slag, just as the door had been, melding the graceful triplicate tines into a single, jagged blade not unlike a harpoon.

Serena pinned the revenant by the neck. “I’m back, bitch.”

* * *

Mordred hissed in annoyance and shoved the girl away from him. “Tch. I admit, I did not expect to have women throwing themselves upon me so soon after my rebirth.” His hand twitched again.

Hearing Kanade’s voice speak with such derision made Serena sick, but seeing the involuntary movement, Serena’s gaze softened for a second, distracting her from Mordred’s disgusting quip. She felt Kanade’s presence, and it strengthened her resolve. “I’m going to save you, Kanade. I promise...” She whispered, but quickly returned to the cold glare she had as she focused on who she was really facing. 

“Foolish girl,” Mordred said. “Soon I will have her will broken. There will be nothing left to save!”

Serena’s glare turned into a sly smirk. To reach Kanade, she’d simply have to channel her spirit. “I think she’ll have  _ you _ broken before you even have the time to blink.”

Mordred’s hand tensed without his consent. “Grrrr,” he growled to himself. “How dare you?”

_ Just a little bit closer…  _ Serena gulped as she tried to swim closer without being noticed too much. Unfortunately, her momentum was short.

Gungnir’s trident swirled into being in Mordred’s hand. “I have little time for verbal fencing, girl. If you wish to die on my spear, let us get on with it!” He lunged at her.

Those words were the last straw for Serena. “HOW DARE YOU CALL IT  _ YOUR  _ SPEAR?!" With what sounded like a battle cry, she lunged forward at him as well. 

With a clang of steel on steel, the two clashed, holy sword against cursed spear. Serena flipped Airgetlám into the palm of her left hand, using it to parry and riposte. “Whatever affection you may have felt for that girl,” Mordred began, “you had best abandon. I have waited over a thousand years for this, and I will not give up my second life simply so some upstart can squander her first!”

“That’s not up to you to decide!” Serena shouted, trapping the spear between Airgetlám and Excalibur and forcing it away, only for Mordred to grin wickedly and slam one of his horns into her face, splitting the skin. She grunted in pain as saltwater began to sting the wound.

“Oh, but it is!” Mordred roared, spinning the harpoon on either side of his body. “Soon enough, I will have consumed enough of her mind that she is nothing but an echo in my thoughts- something to keep me entertained in my dreams!”

The thought of what  _ that  _ meant ignited Serena’s thoughts in a furious rage. “She’s not your plaything, you bastard!” she shouted.

Mordred laughed, and flung Gungnir at her. The brunette dodged, but the spear duplicated itself a dozen times in a fan of dark lances, a twisted mirror of Kanade’s STARDUST∞FOTON. A single javelin grazed her side, causing her to hiss in pain. “See?” he said with obvious glee. “I have already assimilated enough of her to use these ‘special attacks,’ as you call them! Soon everything that was once hers will be mine!”

“NO!” Serena shouted, and thrust Excalibur at him blindly. He caught the blade with ease, only for his body to betray him. The hand closed around the sword’s fuller and drove it into Kanade’s side, leaving a deep gash. Serena only saw it for a split second, but the grin that flashed across that face was undoubtedly Kanade’s.

Serena was horrified that her hand had dealt such a wound, but a surge of confidence overwhelmed that feeling. Perhaps it was in a roundabout way, but she and Kanade were fighting side by side once again. She pressed her assault.

_ Damn you, woman, _ cursed Mordred, opening a dialogue with his host for the barest fraction of a second.

_ Fuck you,  _ came the response.

Mordred chuckled to himself.  _ If I cannot drive her away by the blade, perhaps I shall simply break her heart.  _ He felt her ephemeral breath catch at that.

_ What—  _ she tried to question him, but he closed his link to her before she could respond.

“Look here,” Mordred said, gesturing at the wound. “Is the idea of being returned to you so painful for her? Even her acts of defiance are self-destructive! She’d rather die than be reunited with you!”

Serena froze at that, and Mordred took full advantage of the opening, striking her with Gungnir’s haft. As she doubled over in pain, he whipped his tail up and struck her once again in the face. She tumbled away, slamming into the bulkhead with a dull  _ thud _ .

“That was low,” she growled. “You knew that wasn’t going to work.”

Mordred leveled his spear at her. “Oh, but it did.” The tact had worked perfectly. His strength was beginning to flag, and the blow had given him the chance to catch his breath. “Now fight, girl! Or is it that you want me to take her mind?” His smile twisted. “Or did you perhaps come here because you wanted me to take yours?” He smiled wolfishly. “If you offer me your body, I might let her go.”

“What?” she snarled. “You can’t be serious.” With an artful swing, she knocked Gungnir aside and closed in on his face.

_ How desperate she must be to try that,  _ Mordred thought. He caught her in the gut with an elbow and laughed. “That cannot seriously be your plan! A true love’s kiss? Ha! You believe that romantic drivel?!”

She glowered, and lunged at him.

Mordred batted Excalibur away once again. With a certain grudging misogynistic annoyance, he was forced to admit that his previous body would have tired far earlier than this new one. Compared to this new, godlike strength, his old body was a frail and weak specimen. 

“Your reticence to harm this body will be your undoing,” he said, unknowingly echoing Shem-Ha. He was an experienced swordsman, skilled enough to know when he was outmatched; in his exhausted state, she was more than capable of killing him. “You know you cannot stop me without destroying my host. So why do you not strike for the heart, wench?”

Serena felt as if gripping the hilt of the sword would either break her hand or the hilt itself at this point. But she seized the moment— that question gave her a chance to reach Kanade, the best chance she’d had so far. She smiled as calmly as one could smile on a battlefield. “To kill you would be to snuff out my blazing star. Kanade is the flame that warms me when I’m cold, and the shining light that soothes me when I’m hurt.” Her grip on her sword tightened. “That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it’ll always be!”

The specter’s eyes softened and soon Serena found herself looking into Kanade’s eyes, not Mordred’s. “Serena…” she breathed.

Serena’s heart soared, and she rushed forward and pressed her lips to Kanade’s. It was a chaste kiss compared to their usual fare; a kiss of pure love, colored by not a trace of lust. Kanade’s breath caught in her throat as Mordred screamed his rage. An unseen force dragged him from her body, and as his shadowy figure separated from her body, her eyes flashed a warm red.

The two broke their kiss and looked toward the shade. They exchanged glances. Kanade’s hands flashed red as she seized him by the throat, her anger at being controlled, at being forced to harm her beloved transcending the barrier between the physical and spirit realms. At the revenant’s head, a single crimson eye materialized in physicality, glaring at her in rage. But no spirit’s ire could oppose the fury of Kanade. Serena spun her sword in her hand, and drove the point into the most evident weakness.

Mordred screamed as the blade pierced his eye. At the same moment, Kanade jerked her hands to the side, snapping his ethereal spine. With a sound like a thousand diamonds shattering, Excalibur split down the center and exploded in a flash of silver light. In the face of that blinding gleam, Mordred dissipated into a mist of blood and shadow.

It was finally over. With the last of her strength, Kanade rushed to Serena and tackled her in a bear hug. “...No more taking swords from weird ladies we see at the bottom of the ocean.” She whispered weakly, only tightening her hug around her partner.

Serena hugged her back and pulled her into a kiss, this one significantly less chaste than the previous one. “You’re back,” she breathed. “You’re really back.”

Kanade patted Serena’s head, her smile as big as it could ever be. “Yeah, I think I’m back.”

Fighting back tears, Serena pulled her into an even tighter hug. “I missed you,” she choked, as she buried her head in Kanade’s wild, fluffy hair.

“I missed you too… so much.” But Kanade’s happiness fade as her hand brushed the bandage on Serena’s abdomen. Her smile slowly faded. “...My Gungnir did this…” 

“Shhhh,” Serena whispered, taking hold of Kanade’s hands. “Maybe your spear, but not your hands.”

Kanade felt a strange pain at that, as though her mind could not accept that truth. She nodded, resolving to simply agree for now. “Let’s just get outta here. This place...” she hissed.

As much as she tried to hide it, Kanade couldn’t hide her discomfort from Serena. The brunette smiled and rested her forehead against Kanade’s in a brief attempt to comfort her, then snaked her arm under Kanade’s tail and picked her up bridal style, insofar as she could underwater.

Kanade yelped in surprise, then smiled slightly and nuzzled against Serena's chest. “You’re not half bad at this. I want you to hold me like this at our wedding!”

An image of Kanade in a wedding dress beside an altar flashed in front of her eyes, in contrast to the image she’d pictured the other day, and Serena blushed madly.

Kanade smirked. “Heh. I wonder what you're thinking 'bout,” She cupped Serena's cheek in her hand.  _ “ _ My silver bride...”

Serena let out a high pitched squeak. If this were a cartoon, she'd be as red as an overheated coal furnace and spewing steam out her ears. She desperately tried to think of a comeback, but every thought was overrun with happy images of Kanade and her as a married couple.

“Hm.” Kanade chuckled quietly and closed her eyes. “Let's get back to the surface, though.”

Grateful for the opportunity to escape her embarrassment, but also somewhat disappointed to leave that blissful reverie, Serena seized on that. “Yes, let’s!” She pulled Kanade closer and swam out of the chamber. Everything was silent save for the sound of Kanade humming contentedly as she nuzzled Serena’s chest. Finally, they slipped out of the facility through a rend in the hull.

“So how's everyone?” Kanade looked up at Serena.

“Worried. Missing you. Tsubasa-san looked ready to throw herself into the sea as soon as she heard.”

“Oh jeez, sounds just like her. How 'bout your sister?” 

Serena seems to be holding back a smile. “You aren’t going to believe this. Guess who suggested using a kiss to force him out of your head?”

“No way.” Kanade frowned. “No, you’re joking.”

Serena started shaking with laughter. “Not joking. Really. That actually happened.”

“Damn. So you think she’ll let me marry you?” Kanade smirked. “I hope kissing you won't be a pain now, too.” 

“I’m pretty sure we’re cursed with that forev— wait, hold on a second.” she stopped laughing and looked at Kanade in surprize. “We finally managed to kiss without summoning her!”

“Holy shit, you're right!” Kanade smirked. “Maybe we can do it again then? C'mon, I miss your lips.”

_ Time for payback, _ Serena thought. “Oh really? The great ladykriller, _ asking  _ for a kiss? This is o-fish-ally the most surprising thing I've heard today.” Serena grinned.

“Oh no… I've ruined you…” Kanade sighed heavily.

“Was it really so bad? I didn’t think it was too a-trout-cious!” That grin had spread ear to ear now.

“No way…” Kanade whined, nuzzling closer to Serena. “Your sister will kill me if she finds out you learned this from me!”

“Yeah, she’ll make you walk the plankton.” 

“I'm doomed…” Kanade huffed, but a smile crept on her face. “But I guess it's worth it to see you smile.”

Serena smiled and rubbed her nose against Kanade’s. “Okay, I’ll stop now.”

“Heh, I’m saved,” Kanade said. She blushed suddenly. “Hey, uh, speaking of humor…”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“That joke you made on Monday… remember how I… um… misunderstood you?”

Serena laughed. “Ah, yes, I remember. The joke that got you to admit you’re such a cute bottom.”

Kanade’s blush deepened. “Uh, so… what was that supposed to mean?

She ruffled her lover’s hair. “Kanade, who was the bottom that night?”

“Uh… I think you were?”

Serena blushed back. “So, if I said you went down that night, perhaps  _ on me _ , what would I have meant?”

“Oh… OH!” Kanade said. Impossibly, her blush deepened even further. She burst out laughing, and Serena joined her.

Serena booped her nose. “I’m still annoyed that the  _ one time  _ I tried making a lewd joke, you didn’t get it.”

Kanade wrapped her arm around her. “I stand by what I said: you’re totally bad at it. But maybe with a little practice…” She grinned.

“Oh, hush you.”

They broke the surface, and together they gasped as their lungs switched from extracting oxygen from water to breathing in air.

Above them, a helicopter practically dropped out the sky in its haste to reach them. With the enhanced eyesight endowed by her gear, Serena could just make out her sister in the cockpit. The runners were barely touching the water when the bay door slammed open, revealing a certain frantic bluenette.

“KANADE!” Tsubasa sobbed, jumping into the water and swimming her way to hug her tightly. Serena released Kanade quickly as Tsubasa loomed over them, her hands outstretched, threatening to rip Kanade out of her arms.

“Oh crap—” Kanade breathed out before Tsubasa's crushing embrace nearly broke every bone in her body.

“KANADEEEEEEEEEEE!” Tsubasa continued to sob, completely ignoring anything around her.

Serena tapped her headphones. “Hey sis, you there?”

Maria’s voice came through loud and clear. The relief was obvious in her tone: “Serena, you’re okay!”

“Your plan worked,” Serena said with a smile. “Though, I didn’t exactly expect to kiss a ghost out of my girlfriend when I took this mission.”

On the other end of the line out of Serena’s view, Maria flushed wildly. “W-well, I’m glad everything worked out!”

“Alright—” Kanade scoffed, pushing Tsubasa off. “Serena might get jealous if you hug me like that for so long.”

Tsubasa frowned, completely oblivious. “But—”

Kanade gently extracted herself from Tsubasa’s embrace. “Nuh-uh. Also, getting hard to breathe”

Serena rolled her eyes. “Hey sis, could you keep the chopper stable so we can get aboard?” At Maria’s affirmative, Serena released her transformation and climbed into the helicopter. Without her armor protecting her, she suddenly felt the cold and wet very acutely. Shivering, she offered Kanade her hand.

Kanade smiled and took her hand, dragging a partly sobbing sword with her after releasing her own transformation. She hissed immediately after. “Gosh, it feels even colder than that bitch…” 

Tsubasa shivered at the mention of who Kanade refered to. “I wish I could've done more than just scratch her. I wish I could’ve cut her hands off.”

Kanade blinked. “Wait, you managed to cut that bitch? Nice!” She smacked Tsubasa's back so hard Tsubasa nearly fell back into the sea.

Maria called from the cockpit. “I’m going to take us back to Brean Down now.” She paused. “And… Kanade? It’s good to have you back.”

“Heh, I'm glad to be back.” She grinned, rubbing beneath her nose like those cheeky anime characters. “You seem friendlier. Does that mean you’re okay with me marrying Serena now?” She returned to her usual smirk.

The helicopter lurched as Maria lost her composure. “D-don’t push your luck!” she shouted. Serena giggled.

“Oh, but I bet you wanna see her in a cool tuxedo just as much as I want to,” She shot a playful glance at Serena. “Right?”

“Not as much as Tsubasa-san is looking forward to seeing you in a frilly white wedding dress!” Serena teased back. Tsubasa blushed furiously and looked away, sputtering denials that made it entirely clear how exciting that prospect was.

“But I wanna see you in something other than dresses…” Kanade crossed her arms, pouting loudly.

Maria called from the cockpit. “My apologies if I’m channeling Chris here, but do that stuff at home or I’m going to crash this chopper into the sea!”

“P-Please don’t…” Tsubasa whined beside her, holding tightly onto her seat. “I don’t think they care right now...”

“Tsubasa’s got a point.” Kanade snorted.

“Sorry, Sis,” Serena called, and leaned in to kiss her lover.


	9. The Calm After the Storm

[Two days later]  
The two of them clasped their hands happily as she settled into the VIP box overlooking the stage. “It’s nice to relax like this after a mission,” Serena said, resting her head on Kanade’s shoulder.  
“It feels like it’s been a decade since I was gone, even though it’s been around two days. I mean, even your sister is okay with me now, and I thought it’ll take much longer for that.” She slid her arm around Serena’s shoulder, pulling her closer.   
Serena was more than happy to rest her head on Kanade’s chest rather than her shoulder. “Mmm. I was surprised too. I wonder what changed.”  
“But now I can’t make fish puns… That sucks.” She sighed with a smile. “Will you miss them?”  
The head on her chest rotated to look her in the eye playfully. “Not a chance,” she said with a smile.  
“Weird of someone who made them herself to say.” Kanade ruffled Serena’s hair, barely containing her laughter at this point.   
There was a twinkle in Serena’s eye. “To defeat evil, one must know it.”  
Kanade snuggled closer to Serena with a quiet hum. “Well you’re my brave and adorable knight in shining armor, of course you know how to defeat evil.” Serena melted in her girlfriends arms as she pulled her closer. Kanade sighed, continuing to mess with Serena’s hair. “... And I’m really happy you saved me the way you did, Serena.”  
“I’m just happy to have you back,” Serena said.  
“And I’m happy to be back.” Kanade let out a weak laugh, before returning to her grin. “So when’s the thing’s starting?”  
As if on cue, the lights dimmed and the concert began.   
The two of them sat in silence, watching as the duo entered the stage. But sitting in silence wasn’t exactly something Kanade favored. She slowly leaned to Serena’s ear, bumping their shoulders together on the way. “...So when do you think they’ll do something completely gay?”  
Serena giggled. “Look at those costumes! I think they have already!”  
Kanade crossed her arms, grinning from ear to ear. “And whose design was this again?”  
She frowned. “I think his name is Fujimoto? Fujimoto Satoru? Am I thinking of the right person?”  
“...” Kanade’s smirk widened even more. “Think a little harder than that.”  
Serena’s eyes widened. “You didn’t.”  
“Oh, but I did!” She laughed, rufling Serena’s hair. “Why do you think it looks so gay?”  
“How did you manage that?!”  
“Tsubasa’s too oblivious to see through my logic, and I guess your sister really didn’t mind my perfect plan. I gave her my feedback a few weeks ago.” Kanade glanced back to the stage. She got an idea, and she wasn’t doing a good job at hiding that at all. “Hey, since your sister’s busy, do you think we can finally kiss?” She placed a finger under Serena’s chin and gently pushed it up. Her usual smirk turned into a charming smile.  
With a bemused smile, Serena answered. “You say that as if her showing up has actually stopped us this past two weeks.”  
“Heh.” even Kanade’s laugh was charming. “You’re right.” She leaned in and kissed Serena, pushing her back in her seat. Her tongue darted in and parted her lover’s lips, slithering around Serena’s own as she overwhelmed the Arigetlám wielder. Serena shuddered and let out a quiet moan, entirely overpowered by Kanade’s dominant onslaught.  
Maria looked up from her stage and glanced at the VIP box where Serena and Kanade were, eager to see how they were enjoying the concert. Her expression darkened for a moment before she remembered where she was. She cringed internally. The fangirls on the forums were going to have a field day with that expression. She could see the reddit thread now: r/QueensOfMusic, what’s the meaning behind Maria Cadenzavna Eve’s concert scowl?!  
Kanade noticed Maria’s scowl, making the experience as miserable as she could for Maria. She leaned into Serena slower, her eyes never leaving Maria’s.  
Bothered though she was that Serena and Kanade were spending the concert making out, Maria’s professionalism eventually won out and she returned her focus to the concert.  
Serena broke the kiss with a faint gasp. “I feel bad,” she giggled. “We should be watching the concert!”  
“Awww,” Kanade pouted quietly. “But not even a small kiss?”  
Serena raised an eyebrow and stared pointedly. “With the adventures your tongue was going on there, that hardly qualifies as ‘small.’”  
“Oh, but it could go further if it wished.” Kanade smirked even more. “So it was small considering the adventures it could’ve gone on.”  
Kanade leaned in to kiss her again, but Serena countered by resting her head on Kanade’s shoulder and snuggling closer. She pointed as Maria and Tsubasa twirled across the stage in each other’s arms, singing the chorus of their duet as they traversed the distance at high speed. “How do you think they're moving that fast?”  
Kanade’s smirk didn’t leave, and it didn’t intend to leave given how wide it was going. “Gayness.”  
Serena sighed and shook her head, but she was smiling. “Remind me to never talk stage tech with you ever again,” she joked.  
“Gotcha!” She puffed out her chest in mock pride. “I assure you, I am those two’s most enthusiastic shipper. Nothing will ever get me to shut up about them. Unless, of course, you tried to shut me up yourself.”  
The brunette put a finger to Kanade’s lips. “Hush, you. You’re missing the concert. Do you realize how many shippers would kill to see a concert performed by their favorite ship?”  
“Yeah. Maybe we should perform in a concert once then!”  
With wide eyes, Serena shook her head wildly. “Are you kidding? Your fangirls would tear me apart if they knew about us!”  
Kanade’s charming smile returned. “And that means I’ll just protect you. What’s the point of hiding? I wanna be proud of being with someone as gorgeous as you.”  
Serena blushed, but hid her embarrassment by rolling her eyes. “Ah yes, because the best way to protect somebody is by trying to fight hordes of yandere idol fans, knowing the very same person you’re trying to protect is going to have to patch you up at the end of it.”  
“But that makes it worth it.” Kanade wrapped her arms around Serena and nuzzled closer to her. “I love when you patch me up!”  
Serena grumbled. “Careful, or the next time you make me play doctor, I might not be so gentle!”  
“Oh, please don’t be. Be as rough as you want, doctor...”  
“Why, you…” Serena flicked her forehead. With as often as she was doing it, Kanade was going to have an imprint of a fingernail on her forehead before long. “We’ll see how you feel about that once you’ve let another giga Noise spike you into the ground like a tent peg!”  
Kanade huffed, crossing her arms and looking away. “We’ll see how you feel about that once I stop making you pudding.”  
Serena went pale. “You wouldn’t.”  
“Oh? Are you challenging me, then?”  
Serena tried to muster a response, but the prospect of losing access to the one thing Kanade could cook properly was too terrifying.  
“That’s what I thought.” She laughed proudly, turning back to the stage. “Back to the show, I guess.”  
As if waiting for this to be said, the crowd began to applaud the end of the performance. Somehow, they’d managed to fluff their way through the entire concert.  
“Seems ours wasn’t the only curse broken this week,” Serena said, as the fans slowly began to filter out of the venue.  
“I’m surprised nothing exploded yet.” Kanade crossed her arms, deciding not to mention that their particular curse was apparently far from broken. “Sounds… Fishy.”  
Serena pouted. She reached up and flicked Kanade’s forehead again. “I thought we had reached a detente on that.” She grinned. “Do you want me to tell my sister about my new sense of humor?”  
“Ouch!” Kanade groaned, rubbing her forehead. “But my beautiful fish puns...” She mumbled, looking at Serena with her perfect sad puppy eyes.  
Serena felt herself melt in the face of those mesmeric eyes. “M-maybe it’s okay every once in a while…”  
Kanade’s eyes shone in excitement. “Really?? Yay~” She offered Serena her arm, her grin as big as ever. “Now let’s go see how Tsubasa’s doing after a concert that hasn't been ruined. I bet she’s happy.”  
Realizing she had made a terrible mistake, Serena hooked Kanade’s arm in her own and together they made their way backstage. Maria was the first to notice them. “Did you two have fun?” she asked.  
“Oh, it was beautiful. Especially those three poses where you looked super gay.” Kanade chuckled, seeing how Tsubasa’s cheeks quickly went red.   
“Th-That was just the choreography!” Tsubasa mumbled, crossing her arms as she looked away.  
Kanade was unconvinced. She shifted her gaze to Maria instead. “How was it for you?” She smirked. “Did you have fun?”  
Maria shook herself to clear the disappointment at Tsubasa’s denial from her expression. “O-of course!” Serena gave Maria a knowing smile and patted her shoulder.  
Kanade shot a glare at the ever so oblivious blushing sword. “I see.” She hummed.  
Serena caught her meaning instantly, and was about to help her partner with pressuring her sister when a crash behind them caused them all to whirl around in surprise.  
Nimuë floated a few centimeters off the ground, tongues of black lightning arcing from her fingertips to strangle the two idols’ security guards. Her raven hair swirled behind her as if suspended in water, and her white robes, which once evoked a sense of purity, now had a sickening green glow to them. The lightning retracted into Nimuë’s hands, and the guards collapsed, choked to unconsciousness.  
“You disobeyed me, girl,” she snarled. Nimuë’s usual smirk was gone, replaced by an inhuman fury that even Tachibana’s berserker could not compare to. “I told you to destroy Mordred and his host.”  
Serena glared, her hand flying to her pendant. “Mordred is gone. What more do you want?”  
Nimuë snarled. “Anything the specter touches is unclean. She—” she leveled a long, graceful finger at Kanade “— must be cleansed in purifying fire. She will burn at my hand.” She turned back to Serena. “And then there is the matter of Excalibur to consider. Had you done as I ordered and slain the vessel, Excalibur would have survived the energy surge. Yet you chose to trade the holy sword for one miserable life! An irreplaceable artifact, thrown away for that slattern!”  
With narrowed eyes, Serena squared her hips for a fight. “You won’t touch Kanade.”  
“Oh, you will not stop me,” Nimuë growled. “Even without Excalibur, I am more than a match for you.” She advanced menacingly. “I granted you the Holy Blade and you insisted on crawling after your lover like a noble pining over a common whore," she scoffed. "It was my mistake, I admit. I should not have entrusted something so important to a lustful coward who would throw it away simply because she was too soft to take a single worthless life!"  
Nimuë gathered her power, and her eyes seemed to gleam with dark energy. The air tasted of ozone. She leaned forward and drifted towards Serena, raising her hand to deliver a killing blow. But her face went slack with surprise as Kanade darted in front of her prey and delivered a straightforward punch directly to her face. Time seemed to slow, and the Gungnir Girl felt something give way beneath her knuckles as the enchantress’s nose cracked in a spurt of blood.  
Kanade shook her hand as if she just touched the most rank and vile thing in the world. She glared down at the senseless enchantress in pure disgust. “I don’t think any king would let her queen be mocked and insulted this much. You’re lucky I only broke your nose.”  
Serena held on to her arm as they watched S.O.N.G. agents tend to the security guards and drag the enchantress away. Ogawa and Mr. Glazer, the owner of Tsubasa’s record label, entered the backstage area and looked around in surprise at the curious scene. The bearded man frowned and looked at the four of them. “What happened here?”  
Serena smiled. “Oh, just an overzealous fan who snuck backstage. She was very insistent about getting an autograph, and couldn't accept her failure to attain one.”  
Glazer seemed confused, but he waved it off. As he turned to congratulate the idols, Serena and Kanade exchanged grins.  
Their pleasantries finished, the two men departed. Kanade sighed. “Man, punching this piece of trash felt really good.” She smiled at the two songstresses. “So we can count this concert as a success, right?”  
Maria smiled. “In the grand scheme of things, this is probably one of the least disastrous things to happen.” Seeing the thousand-yard stare in Tsubasa’s eyes, she put an arm around her partner and hugged her gently.  
Kanade eyed Maria with a look that clearly said Do it, you coward. Yet it felt more like a death stare with her crystalline red eyes.  
Maria got her message and blushed deeply. She hesitantly turned to the bluenette and pressed her lips against her cheek. She felt a rising heat in Tsubasa’s face as the sentinel turned a bright red.  
Kanade’s gaze softened. She crossed her arms with a proud smile.  
Tsubasa babbled incoherently, switching her gaze from Kanade to Maria and back with insane speed. Meanwhile, Maria looked as though her face would never regain an ordinary complexion. But none of them were ready for what happened next.  
Tsubasa shook herself ever so slightly, leaned over, and kissed Maria back. The two blushing idols stared at each other with a mix of surprise and affection, and slowly, in unison, Kanade and Serena applauded. “About damn time,” they said together.


	10. Epilogue

Serena groaned as her eyes flitted open. She glanced at the clock. 3:00 AM. It was the middle of the night.

As she stretched her body, she became painfully aware of the empty space beside her. “Kanade?” she mumbled, and slowly slid out of bed. She draped a blanket around her shoulders and padded through her apartment looking for her lover.

She found her in the living room, staring aimlessly out the window. The Gungnir Girl hadn’t bothered to get dressed, instead opting to just lie nude on the comfiest sofa in Serena’s apartment. Usually when Kanade undressed, she exuded a palpable confidence that often left Serena to melt in front of her. But not tonight.

Tonight, Kanade’s back was hunched, and her shoulders were rolled forward with her arms crossed to either shoulder across her chest. It made her look small and vulnerable, like a kicked puppy, and instantly Serena felt a protective urge. She didn’t want to see Kanade ever look like that.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

Kanade started and glanced away from the moonlit vista toward her lover. She tried to muster a smile, but it came across as a grimace. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up.” She looked her partner up and down as the blanket she’d wrapped herself in fell open. “Mmm, you brought me a gift.” Usually her voice would have been sultry and seductive at that, but tonight it sounded… forced. Performative, even.

Serena sat down next to her and wrapped the blanket around the two of them, turning them into a comfy lesbian onigiri. “Kanade… she began, unsure of what to say.

“Yeah?” she said. Usually, Kanade’s libidinous grin would be stretching from ear to ear, but tonight she simply curled up against her girlfriend and closed her eyes.

_ Something’s really wrong, _ Serena thought. “Kanade… are you okay?”

Kanade’s breath caught. “That obvious, huh?” She waited to see if Serena would let her escape this one, but the brunette remained quiet. She took a deep breath, feeling the emotion beginning to overwhelm her. “Serena, I… I hurt you.”

“No!” Serena exclaimed, her eyes widening. “No, that wasn’t you! It’s not your fault!”

Kanade pulled a hand out of the folds of the blanket and looked at it as if it was the most hateful thing in the universe. “You can say that all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that these hands…” her other hand brushed Serena’s new scar “...these hands left a mark on your body that will never go away.”

Serena grabbed her hands and held them between her own. “You didn’t give me this scar. Mordred did.” She allowed herself a morbid smile. “And I got my revenge on him.”

Kanade sniffled. It was a sound Serena had never heard from her before, yet even more to her surprise, a tear rolled down her face. Serena reached up to wipe the tear from her partner’s cheek, only for her to flinch away. “Serena… I can’t trust myself anymore,” she sniffed. “What if I lose control? What if I hurt you again?”

“NO!” Serena shouted, making the redhead flinch more. “Kanade, it’s over. He can’t control you anymore. And anything he did, we can undo- together.”

“You don’t understand!” Kanade cried, pulling away from her lover. “It was still  _ my _ hand!  _ My _ spear! How can I…” She gulped. “I love you, Serena, but… I’m afraid. I’m afraid of the pain I cause. I’m afraid of what these hands can do. I’m afraid of myself!” She practically shouted those last words.

Serena felt her rage toward Mordred reignite, furious that he had done this to her beloved, and suddenly she felt a grim satisfaction that his last moment had been an excruciating one. But in the now, she knew she had no time for that sort of thought; Kanade needed her right now. She discarded the blanket, wrapped her arms around Kanade, and held her tightly. “Shhhh,” she said, reaching up to caress her lover’s face. “It’s okay to not be okay,” she whispered.

Kanade, hitched as her tears made her breathing irregular. “I… Serena, I…” She buried her face in her lover’s shoulder. “I’m not okay,” she admitted. “And I’m not sure when I will be.”

“That’s alright,” Serena whispered. “That’s alright. Take as long as you need. I’m here for you. I’ll never let you go.” She felt Kanade shudder in her arms as she began to cry in earnest. Closing her eyes, she pulled Kanade close and began to sing.

_ The apple floated in the sky _

_ The apple fell down to the ground _

Serena felt Kanade’s shoulders relax, and she curled up against Serena’s chest. The hitches in her breath grew more shallow, and she started to calm down.

_ The stars were born, the songs were born _

_ The Lulu Amelu smiled for eternity _

_ The stars kissed, the songs slept _

_ Where will they call home? _

_ Where will they call home? _

Kanade stopped crying entirely, and looked up at Serena with wide eyes. Their gazes met, Kanade’s sad, vulnerable and forlorn, to Serena’s caring kindness.

_ The apple fell down to the ground _

_ The apple floated in the sky _

As the last lines of the song Kanade unfurled her arms and wrapped them around her beloved and buried her face in Serena’s neck. They were quiet for a moment. “Hey… Serena? What you said back in Avalon… did you really mean that?”

Serena pulled back to look her in the eye. “You are my whole world, Kanade. You’re the gentle flame that warms me when I’m cold, and the shining light that soothes me when I’m hurt.” She smiled. “That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it’ll always be!”

A single tear rolled down Kanade’s cheek as she pulled her close. “I love you, Serena.

“I love you too, Kanade.”


End file.
